


The Fall

by EnderBerlyn



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Blood As Lube, Breathplay, Dark, Death of a Canon Character, Disturbing Themes, Dubious Consent, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Established Relationship, Explicit Sexual Content, Hurt Dean Winchester, Implied/Referenced Underage Prostitution, Infidelity, M/M, Multi, Neglected Dean, Rape/Non-con Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-22
Updated: 2016-07-22
Packaged: 2018-07-24 03:26:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 15
Words: 42,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7491591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EnderBerlyn/pseuds/EnderBerlyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean has been the center of Sam’s black and gray world for as long as he can remember. He sometimes jokes that the only reason Sam can see the true color of his eyes is because they’re soulmates. Then Sam sets the Darkness loose on the world and, well, maybe Dean isn’t as important as he thought.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> [Art](http://amberdreams.livejournal.com/) by [amberdreams](http://amberdreams.livejournal.com/). 
> 
> Many thanks to [ReadHeadedVenus](http://archiveofourown.org/users/RedHeadedVenus) and [shadowsong26](http://shadowsong26.livejournal.com/) for the cheerleading and helpful comments, and of course to my awesome beta, [Astrid_B_Caine](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Astrid_B_Caine/pseuds/Astrid_B_Caine).
> 
> Canon divergent after 10x23.

Dean feels like he woke up on the wrong side of a five-day bender.

Birds chatter to one another in the distance and vibrant purple blossoms dance across his vision, brilliant in the harsh glare. Dean thinks better of opening his eyes, shifts and tries to get comfortable on the lumpy mattress instead.

The bed doesn’t give – not even a little – and a cautionary prickle dances across the nape of his neck. He rolls over with a groan and coughs when he inhales a mouthful of dirt. Unlike the flowers, the dust coating his throat sends a jagged bolt of adrenaline racing up his spine.

Sam hasn’t done it in a while on account of Dean’s relentless teasing, but he isn’t exactly above picking the occasional bouquet during one of his early morning runs. He tends to stash them throughout the bunker for Dean to stumble across later. It never fails to startle him when he rounds a corner only to be confronted by a jaunty display of sunflowers and hollyhock. It’s definitely one of Sam’s stranger quirks, considering he can’t even see the colors he tries so desperately to brighten the bunker with. But, yeah. The flowers aren’t that weird.

The dirt is though.

Sam hasn’t tracked anything into bed since he was six years old and decided to make Dean a mud pie for breakfast.

Not of his own free will, at least. Memories of Sam dropping, bloodied and filthy, onto one garish bedspread after another leave Dean’s chest knotted as he pushes up onto his hands and spits out the earthy taste. He scrubs wearily at the gritty saliva sticking to his lips and squints into the blinding light.

Dry, brittle grass stretches out as far as he can see. Behind him, a line of trees shrinks off into the horizon. A breeze rustles through the overgrown blades and the shock of waking in the middle of a field begins to fade as his brain shakes off the last dregs of unconsciousness.

The scenery resembles that of the place he went to die – a dilapidated Mexican joint about 40 miles outside of Tulsa – but he can’t make out any buildings in the distance. The trees look to be more or less the same, though, so he sets out in that direction while his brother’s name echoes around him.

Voice hoarse, earth clinging to his taste buds, and tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth, Dean takes a mental inventory of every type of beer he can think of.  He pares the list down to those most likely to line the coolers of the nearest convenience store. He’ll buy a six-pack and crack one open as he sinks down on Sam’s cock, trying to forget this day ever happened. At least until tomorrow morning when they sort out their tangled limbs and figure out how to shove the damn Darkness back in its box.

Dean trudges on, Sam’s hands ghosting over his skin, and does his damnedest to ignore the rock that has somehow managed to work its way into his boot. The spike of pressure every time his foot strikes the ground burns away the memory of Sam’s caress and forces him, kicking and screaming, into the present. Sweat drips into his waistband and the damp denim chafes at his skin.

Bright light crowds out the gloom as the trees thin. Dean’s steps quicken to match his heart as he bursts into the clearing. Sammy will be on the other side with a smile to rival the afternoon sun.

His stomach twists when an empty meadow greets him instead of his mountain of a brother. Another stand of trees laughs at him in the distance. He kicks an offending rock into the tall grass and watches a pair of birds start into flight. “Fuck!” he yells after them.

Maybe he’ll just get a bottle of Jack. Sam will still fuck him even if he’s shitfaced. Hell, he deserves it after all this.

Time crawls by. His hope has been dashed too many times to work up any excitement when he notices the forest thinning once again. The flash of Baby’s chrome surprises him as much as one of Sam’s hidden flower arrangements. His face aches with the force of his grin when he sees her sitting sleek and welcoming in the long shadow of Juanita’s Café. He takes one excited step forward, relief flooding through his veins, before he pulls up short.

Baby may be waiting for him, but Sam is not.

He calls his brother’s name, strained voice barely carrying past cracked lips. He peers into the shadows of the back seat before he ventures into the restaurant. Nothing has changed. Ritualistic paraphernalia is scattered across the table. Photos Sam brought to help guide him home still sit undisturbed on the floor next to Death’s ashes. Streaks of scarlet and orange peek through a hole in the ceiling, a small souvenir left behind by the red lightening.

Dean works his way back into the kitchen and skips his flashlight over the room. It locates the remains of Death’s feast but doesn’t find his brother. He inhales deeply through his nose and counts to four. Eight counts as he exhales. Again.

Again.

Slightly calmer, Dean squares his shoulders and makes his way back to the entrance. Sam definitely heard him shout Poughkeepsie, he tells himself.

_He heard. He’ll be waiting in the first town up the road._

The mantra plays through his head on repeat as Dean toils and counts his breaths. It isn’t the first time he’s had to dig Baby out of a ditch, and it isn’t the first time his brother hasn’t been where Dean last put him.

It doesn’t take long to get back on the road. To get a little bit closer to finding Sam. Dean works his way through the box of old cell phones as he drives and throws each one a little harder than he needs to. A little harder than the last. Every goddamn one at least half charged; every last one without service. He suspects his current phone is the same, wherever it is. Probably back in that fucking field.

The Impala shudders where it comes to rest in front of a rusty payphone and Dean bolts out the door. The phone book stands out in its newness and he accidentally rips a flimsy page in his haste to flip through them. The second tear is on purpose.

Dean dials hastily, the crumpled yellow page clutched in one hand while he taps out a nervous rhythm with the other.

Four rings.

Five.

“Chesterfield Mo–”

“Connect me to Jim Rockford.”

The rhythm grows into the drum line from Metallica’s “Until It Sleeps”. Twenty seconds.

Thirty.

Too long.

“We don’t have any guests by that name.”

“Check again.”

The beat grows stronger.

“I’m sorry, but – “

Dean shoves another quarter into the payphone and has half the number to the next motel dialed before the kid’s less-than-eager voice fades from his ears.

Seven quarters, three dimes, and four nickels after he first threw Baby in park, Dean sags in the driver’s seat with nothing but a rumpled yellow page sitting where his brother should be.

They’ve only used this plan twice before. It worked flawlessly the first time when Sam escaped from jail, at least until Dean sent that detective to find him. Even so, Dean at least knew _where_ to send her. And Sam knew where Dean was.

The second time, Dean showed up at the motel three hours and seven minutes after Sam had checked in under Mr. Rockford’s name. Sam had spent their time apart watching the numbers tick by on the nightstand clock and speed-dialing his brother every ten minutes until Dean barged in, covered in streaks of dried blood and slime. Dean wouldn’t stop pawing at his brother long enough for Sam to convince himself the blood wasn’t Dean’s. Sam eventually snapped, picked him up and shoved the both of them into the minuscule shower stall. He washed the dirt and gore off Dean’s skin with Dean’s fingers buried in his ass and Dean’s teeth sinking into the meat of his shoulder.

***

Dean makes it five days at the Chesterfield Motel before he cracks.

If Sam were coming, he sure as shit would have done it by now. Anxiety presses down on him and he starts to wonder if Sam heard him shout Poughkeepsie over the maelstrom outside the car. Maybe Sam heard him, but woke up in China. Who-the-fuck-knows how the Darkness works?

He refuses to consider any other possibilities.

Dean doesn’t stop unless he needs gas _and_ a bathroom. Not or: _a_ _nd._ Once, he eats a hotdog while he waits for Baby’s tank to fill. Stale bread and over-salted meat taste like ash on his tongue. He doesn’t bother trying again.

The radio drifted to static some time ago, but Dean hasn’t noticed. White noise is the perfect soundtrack for his morbid thoughts.

Twice, he pulls over and goes through the box of phones. Each time, he carefully returns them to their proper place in the cardboard prison. Too many minutes had ticked by while he dug under the seats after his initial tantrum for him to waste any more of them. Just like when he’d first tried with Baby’s back wheel wedged in a muddy chuckhole, none of them fucking work.

So he counts.

Crisp night air rushes across his palate, moist heated breath ghosts back over his lips.

His fingers are white where they grip Baby’s wheel like a drowning man clutches at a makeshift raft. He grits his teeth and sucks a new breath in through his nose.

In.

Out.

First his left thumb, and then his right slowly uncurl.

In.

He only releases his breath when the rest of his fingers decide to follow suit.

_Get it together_ , he tells himself. The echo of his father’s voice grounds him in a way that Sam’s stupid breathing exercises never will.

He digs under Sam’s side of the bench seat for the tape box and shoves Zeppelin IV into the deck. He lets the high-pitched primeval wail of Robert Plant’s voice wash over him and restore some sense of normalcy to the too quiet, too empty car.

Dean pulls out onto the blacktop, feeling more calm than he has since he first saw red lightening crackle across the sky. The world hasn’t ended and, just as soon as he can get his hands on Sam, he’s going to fuck his brother stupid while _When the Levee Breaks_ blasts in the background on repeat.

***

Dean isn’t quite sure when he last slept. Probably when he passed out on the floor his third morning at the Chesterfield. Those first days after Sam disappeared are a lost in a blurred alcoholic stupor. He pulls the Impala into a rest stop after the second time his drooping eyelids send him drifting across the yellow dividing line. Sleep pulls him under before he finishes sifting through the box of cell phones in his lap.

Waking up is a bitch. His neck aches from the awkward angle he slumped over in and his back joins the fray with its own complaint when he pulls himself upright. Even so, the short rest has done him good. The setting sun glares through his window as he pulls Baby back onto the road.

Three anxiety-laced hours later, Dean surveys the bunker and lets despair wash over him. He knows he’s alone the second the door swings open. Old Spice doesn’t linger on the air. No welcoming glow of a table lamp through the archway tells him he’ll find Sam in the library, halfway hidden behind a stack of books. There’s no current case. No Sam. The air is cold and dead, un-warmed by his brother’s presence.

He knows if he walks through the foyer and into the library, he’ll find the bodies of a monster and an innocent boy – both with his bullets in their brains – instead of his Sasquatch brother drooling in his favorite chair, mouth slack and a book of guilty pleasure forgotten in his lap.

Dean turns and heads down the hall instead, dread settling in his gut like an old friend and fickle hope struggling for freedom in his hands.

His grip falters on the pathetic optimism he’s been clinging to when he crosses the threshold of Sam’s room. It’s empty even though it’s been put back together since the Steins had their way with it. Doesn’t look any different than the last time he’d been in here.

Admittedly, it isn’t often he’s invited. Once, he left his sweat pants in here along with the book he was using to trick his brain into falling asleep. When he came back from the shower room the next morning, his pants were folded with _Cujo_ sitting on top in a neat little pile outside Sam’s closed door. Every time since, Dean’s been careful to take his belongings with him when he leaves his brother’s bed.

Dean’s never been as big on personal space as Sam is. Everything he has belongs to Sam too as far as he’s concerned. It’s evidenced by the detritus of Sam’s life all over his (their) room when he opens the door. It’s as thoroughly sacked as Sam’s was, but his brother’s gum wrappers still litter the floor by the trashcan. Sam’s giant shoe peeks out from under the bedframe. Sam’s come smirks at him from the sheets where they were cast aside. Sam’s nighttime reading still shoves Dean’s knickknacks to the side on the ledge above the bed.

Six days, nine hours, and forty-six minutes Dean’s been in locked in a state of dictatorial calm, while panic taps on the doors and peeks through the windows. It starts throwing rocks at the tempered glass as his eyes roam over the thin film of dust covering everything. It grabs a battering ram when he dials Sam’s number and it goes straight to voicemail. Again.

Poughkeepsie.

_You go to the first motel in the yellow pages – the bunker if it’s closer – and wait there. I will come for you._

There aren’t any other options. Can’t be.

So where the fuck is Sam?

He stumbles back and leans against the wall. Bends over (“Put your head between your knees, Dean”) and takes a deep pull of oxygen (“Breathe with me, man, come on now”). Breathe in. Hold it. Breathe out.

In.

Hold.

He slides down the cold stone until he’s sitting on colder concrete. Icy fingers work their way through denim and burrow into his skin. It takes a while before he can pick up his phone – can’t even remember dropping it – and still his hands long enough to dial one of Sam’s backup numbers.

By the time he reaches the end of the list, there’s nothing Sam’s lame-ass breathing exercises can do for him. The ghost of his father’s commanding voice isn’t doing much to improve the situation either.

There’s only one thing left for him to do.

He pushes to his feet, flicks off the light, and heads back to the garage. Baby wraps her arms around him and he points her toward his favorite bar. It’s a total fuckhole of a place, but the drinks are cheap and the egos big.

Dean loves it.

It has custom logos on the urinal pucks but fuck if he can remember the name of it – isn’t really sure that it has one – but it lives on in his mind as Hairy’s on account of the bartender. The first time Dean saw him he thought about checking the guy for fangs. Would have, if he didn’t know werewolves aren’t prone to sprouting a bunch of extra hair outside the Hollywood soundstages.

So yeah. He’s going to get absolutely shitfaced for the next two to three days and then he’s going to tear Heaven and Hell apart looking for his goddamned brother.


	2. Chapter 2

Dean scans the crowd as he sidles up to the bar. People mill about in that odd, sort of busy way small town bars sometimes get not long after the workday ends. The kind where nothing’s going on but no one has anything better to do. There are a couple of pool games taking up two tables in back. They’ve drawn quite an audience; the stakes must have gotten pretty high. He orders a double shot of bourbon and watches the games in the mirror above the bar. He can’t see much of the action through the throng of onlookers. It doesn’t concern him. He’s not here to hustle.

One game ends and a few people drift over to take their place. Dean orders another double and sips at it. His stomach lurches when he catches a flash of shaggy brown hair in the age-spotted mirror. Sense memory of burying his fingers in Sam’s hair leaves more fire in its wake than the bourbon does.

He keeps his eyes riveted on the reflection, waiting for another glimpse of the stranger with hair like his brother’s. The game ends and Dean’s breath leaves him when the man he’s been looking for rises to his full height. Wide, flannel-clad shoulders tower above the crowd and Sam is _there_. Sure, he’s a little worse for wear – scratches and yellowed bruises peek out from under his rolled up sleeves – but Sam’s here and he’s fucking breathing.

People press in to offer congratulations. Others abandon the table to return to their booths along the wall. Dean shoulders his way through them all.

Sam jerks back when Dean grabs his wrist and tries to pull him away. Dean tightens his grip and tugs harder, shooting a glare over his shoulder for good measure. Under other circumstances, he would find the dumbfounded expression on his brother’s face comical. Tonight, he turns his back and yanks Sam’s arm again before he feels his brother start following him toward the bathroom. 

Dean slams Sam into the wall and is on him in an instant, nothing but teeth and fingernails as he fights to get at his brother’s skin. Need blazes through him like flames across an oil slick. He needs to touch him, needs to run his hands over Sammy’s skin to be sure he’s here, to know he’s real. He grapples with Sam’s shirts while Sam struggles to get his hands up between them.

Dean bites down, growling at his brother’s perceived resistance. Sam goes slack under the onslaught. Dean almost feels guilty for scolding him when he was only trying to help, but he can’t quite manage it. Buttons clatter against the yellowed tile when he loses the rest of his patience.

Sam keeps his hands to himself while Dean fumbles with his belt, but he won’t stop grinding his hips against Dean’s. It’s making things difficult. The belt proves even more problematic than the flannel and Dean takes out his frustration on Sam’s chest.

He’s not quite sure how the belt situation gets resolved, but Sam’s pants turn out to be less of an obstacle.

Dean is on his knees before he finishes pulling Sammy out of his briefs. Breath whistles over Sam’s teeth as Dean swallows him down. It’s almost as irritating as his brother just leaning against the door, wide-eyed and staring down at him. It’s pissing Dean off. He scrapes his teeth along the underside of Sam’s cock – a silent warning to get with the program – before he plunges down again.

Sam wraps his hands around the back of Dean’s head without having to be told twice. He forces his dick even farther down Dean’s throat and circles his hips once, grinding them against Dean’s face. Dean’s still vexed by the delay, but it wouldn’t be Sammy without a quick check to make sure this is really what he wants. Dean digs his fingers into the muscles of Sam’s ass. _Get on with it_.

Hands tighten on his head and Sam fucks his face in earnest. Dean gives up trying to suck him while Sam pounds into his mouth with fast, brutal thrusts. He’s pretty sure his brother can feel the moment he switches tactics, because Sam starts talking the instant Dean’s throat relaxes and takes what it’s given.

“Look at me, Dean,” he orders, shoving Dean’s forehead back. “Need to see you.”

It still makes him self-conscious whenever Sam wants to stare into his eyes, but who is he to deny his brother this one splash of color in an otherwise gray world? He gives Sam what he wants, just opens his eyes and locks onto Sam’s.

Sam doesn’t even try to hold back his orgasm. He comes with a cut off grunt – never once looking away from Dean’s eyes – and fucks into his mouth halfheartedly as he rides out the aftershocks. Sam paints a trail of come across Dean’s split and angry lips as he pulls out, mixing it with the strings of saliva that spiderweb between them.

A soft whine escapes Dean when Sam traces his fingers through the sticky mess coating his chin. Dean feels like he’s flying apart when Sammy forces three digits into his mouth. Sam strokes along his teeth and dances his fingertips across the back of Dean’s throat before pulling them out and slurping them into his own mouth.

Dean comes in his pants while Sam sucks at his own fingers and stares down at him. His brain short circuits for a bit and he stares right back, dark spot spreading across the front of his jeans. It doesn’t come online again until Sam pulls his fingers out and makes a show of licking them clean.

 “Feel better?” he asks, gripping Dean under the arm and helping him back to unsteady feet.

Dean grunts and heads for the lone stall while he works his own belt loose, leaving Sam to interpret the noncommittal noise any way he wants. It’s a toss-up between a semi-hostile ‘fuck you’ and a thoroughly fucked out ‘hell yes.’ He doesn’t really care which Sam chooses – it’s probably both anyway – and focuses on making himself presentable.

He’s more aware of Sam’s eyes on him than usual as he fusses with his pants, trying to mop up as much come as he can with the cheap, single-ply toilet paper. He’s too lost in a sea of confusion and relief to pay it any mind. He ignores the strange tingling under his skin, chalks it up as a stress reaction to the whole situation.

***

“What the fuck, man?” Dean demands. His voice crackles like broken glass as he pulls the Impala back into the garage.

Sam’s eyebrows crawl up his forehead at the sudden hostility. “What?”

“What do you mean, ‘what?’ The fucking plan, Sam. What happened to the fucking plan?”

“I woke up in Colorado, Dean. I called every motel around Juanita’s. I got back here as soon as I could, man.” He’s entirely too calm, talking to Dean like he’s a cranky child.

It’s infuriating. “And you couldn’t leave a fucking message?”

“I did, Dean,” Sam says and reaches out to like he plans to massage Dean’s neck. “Breathe.”

Dean slaps him away. “I am fucking breathing –”

“I left a message, Dean. Everywhere I could think of. Promise. No one had heard of you.”

 “You couldn’t leave a fucking note back at the bunker?”

“I did, Dean. I put it on the refrigerator.”

_Well, now he’s just being patronizing_. Sam jumps when Dean slams his hand on the wheel, accidentally hitting the horn. “That’s right, Sam,” he yells. “Because the first thing I want when my brother is missing is a fucking snack!”

“Dean, I’m sorry, man. I didn’t think. I left a note. Promise.” The hand is back and it brought the puppy eyes with it. “Deep breath. Hold it.”

“Six fucking days, Sam,” he says on a long exhale.

“I know, Dean. Again. In.”

Dean glares but relaxes his death grip on the steering wheel.

“Good.” Sam says, petting Dean with his words while he strokes him with his hands. “Out.” He blows an exaggerated breath through pursed lips.

Dean does as he’s told, though he’s pretty sure Sammy sitting back where he belongs does more to calm his tattered nerves than his brother’s breathing exercises ever could. He may be sitting in a dark car breathing like a fucking hippie at a yoga retreat, but at least Sam is here doing it with him.

Sam drops his hand when most of the tension drains out of Dean’s shoulders. _Everything’s okay. Sammy’s here. We’ll deal with the Darkness together._ Dean gets out of the car and trails his brother to the kitchen. He doesn’t want to let Sammy out of his sight. He can’t quite force himself to believe Sam will still be there when he turns back around.

“I missed you,” Sam says. He pours a tumbler for Dean and gets a beer for himself.

“Next time, check your goddamn email,” Dean huffs.

“I didn’t –” Sam starts and flounders. “Christ, Dean. I’m so sorry. I don’t even know what to say.”

Sam wraps his arms around him, undoubtedly seeking comfort and forgiveness. It’s a little strange but it isn’t exactly the first time Sam’s used this tactic.

Dean stands statuesque in his arms. The moments tick by and Sam holds him tighter.

Dean’s muscles tremble with the energy he’s expending to keep a grip on his anger. He vibrates with effort and tries to pull away – can’t quite bring himself to do that, either – when the bluster leaves his sails. He goes boneless against Sam’s chest. “I’m serious, Sam,” he mumbles into his brother’s neck. “I don’t want to do this again.”

“I know, Dean,” Sam says and clings even tighter, running his nose over the sensitive skin behind Dean’s ear. His breath gusts across it. “I know. Just… tomorrow, okay?”

***

Dean hums Black Sabbath under his breath and picks at the dried jizz crusted in his happy trail. Not even the sharp tug when it rips out a few wiry hairs can dampen his spirit. His whimsical half-smile blooms into a grin when he catches sight of the blank spot on his forearm. Unconscious hums coalesce into words as he allows himself a minute to stare before he washes the remains of last night from his ass. He belts out “Born to Lose” while the last of the soap runs down his legs and swirls toward the drain.

The Mark is gone. Sammy is okay. They’ll figure out how to shove the genie back in its bottle as soon as Sam gets back with the coffee. He shrugs into his robe and decides to whip up some eggs while he waits.

_Of course_ , he thinks and blinks at the empty wire racks in the refrigerator. The pickings are slim: mystery takeout or a package of smoked ham that smells a little (a lot) heavier than it should. He grabs the box of takeout and recoils when he opens it. _Christ, that’s foul_. _What is that? Beef stroganoff?_ He sets the cardboard container back where he found it when the front door slams. Maybe Sam will surprise him with donuts to go with the coffee.

Except Sam doesn’t.

Because it isn’t Sam.

It’s some hot chick with a tray of Starbucks in her hands. She’s standing frozen in the doorway to the kitchen. _His_ kitchen. Her smile falters as she looks up at him, taking a single step backward.

“Who the fuck are you?” he growls, willing his muscles to unlock and inch a little closer to the gun hidden under the table.

“I was looking for Sam,” she says. Not what he asked, but it does more to explain her bizarre presence in the bunker than her name would.

He closes the gap to the table. Runs his fingers over the cold metal of the SIG Sauer P226 he’d taped there during one of his earlier nesting phases.

 “Sam’s not here.”

“You must be Dean,” she says, shifting under his scrutiny. “He told me about you.”

Dean eyes the coffee in her hands, the tense way she holds the carrier in front of her like a shield. Some blonde chick is standing in his kitchen, bringing his brother fancy coffee and blueberry goddamn muffins at 9 o’clock in the morning.

Some chick that looks a lot like Jess.

Does not compute.

“Anyway, I’m glad you found him,” she continues into the silence. Takes another cautious step back. “Would you tell him Dawn stopped by?”

“You got it,” he says, the words are reflexive and gouging as they claw their way out of his throat.

The bottle of Jack still sits on the table where Sam left it last night. Before he hooked his fingers in Dean’s waistband and made him forget why he was angry. Dean scowls at it while he tries to force himself to let go of the comforting gunmetal. He pours himself an extra finger when he finally manages to bully his hand away.

 He doesn’t feel like singing anymore.

***

“She brought you muffins,” Dean says into the gloom of the library when Sam strolls past on autopilot. It smells vaguely of gasoline and spoiled meat and Dean wants to break something. He wishes Sam hadn’t dragged the Steins’ bodies out. At least then he would have an outlet for the pressure that’s crushing his chest.

“What?” Sam asks as he alters course and sets a coffee carrier and a bag of styrofoam containers on the table.

“They were blueberry.”

“Are you drunk?” Sam asks, brows draw up in confusion.

Dean scoffs and snatches the bottle away before his brother can trade it for coffee. The salty smell of bacon makes his stomach leap to the side.

“Dawn,” he says through clenched teeth. “She stopped by. Brought you muffins.”

He watches the color drain from Sam’s face. Wonders if this is the same gray pallor Sam sees on everyone else.

“Jesus, Sam,” he shouts and pushes away from the table. His chair skitters across the wooden floor behind him, dull clatter and ragged breaths the only sound in room. He paces away and drags his hands through his hair, puts a name to the overwhelming pressure in his chest.

Betrayal.

It pushes down on him like so many tons of earth on his coffin. He fights down the memory, the terror of waking up and understanding that he’s been buried alive, turns and paces the other way. Sam stays still. He stands stiffly beside his chair, tracking Dean with his eyes like a fugitive cornered by the police.

“Dean, I –”

“Dammit, Sam, if you tell me to breathe one more time I will punch you in the fucking neck.”

Sam shuts his mouth and watches him pace, a wolf trapped in a pen built for a creature half its size. Dean grabs his jacket and makes a break for the exit.

“Dean –”

“Fuck you, Sam,” he says and slams the door behind him.

***

Sam is sitting in his favorite chair, bathed in the soft glow of a table lamp when Dean walks back in nine hours later. The empty bottle of Jack stands sentinel beside him, kept company by a cadre of beer bottles and a stack of books that Sam must’ve given up trying to sort through.

“Six days, Sam,” Dean says as he steps through the arch and leans against it, arms crossed over his chest. “You couldn’t wait six fucking days?”

“It isn’t like that, man.”

“Well, what _is_ it like then? Did you trip over your giant fucking feet and land balls deep in her? Give her the puppy eyes and a ‘so sorry Ma’am?’ Have her bring you goddamn blueberry muffins in the morning for your trouble?”

“Dean, no. It – “

“So what then? Tell me how it is. Tell me how you justify fucking some chick after telling me – swearing up and down – that Amelia was the last,” he says as he pushes away from the column he’s leaning on, stalking toward his brother.

Sam’s lip trembles as he struggles to find the words to make Dean understand. “I love you, De,” he says instead.

“Fuck you.”

“I can see her,” Sam blurts out.

Dean stills, the scent of something dangerous on the air. A chill creeps across his skin. He remembers the first time Sam said that to him. His stomach drops the same way it did back then, when he was certain his brother would choose some girl over him. Sam went on and on about his amazing girlfriend (“She glows more than you, Dean… kind of like she’s lit from within”) as Dean gripped the wheel tight and pointed them back toward Stanford.

“Like Jess?” he asks. Poor dead Jessica, whose grays had always shined a little brighter than the rest.

Sam shakes his head. Dean feels the last trace of emotion flicker across his face before it winks out. He sees it reflected in his brother’s face, in the agony in Sam’s eyes.

“Like me?”

Dean needs to know like he needs air.

Sam shakes his head again, the slightest movement to break his brother’s heart. Just a few more words to scatter the pieces. “I can see everything.” He drops his eyes and squares his shoulders to deliver the killing blow. “There are colors under her skin,” he whispers.

This time when Dean leaves, Sam doesn’t try to stop him.

***

Dean clicks on the table lamp and Sam fumbles his box of chicken lo mien, scoring a direct hit to his flannel. Dean’s propped up on the cushions like he’d only gone out for a beer. Like he hadn’t let Sam’s texts and calls go unanswered for the past week.

“I tried, you know,” Dean says and shifts the collar of his button-up a little higher without meeting Sam’s eyes.

A livid bruise peeks around the edge of his shirt and winks at his brother, draws Sam’s gaze in like a black hole.

“What?”

“Went back to the bar. You know –” Dean gestures and whiskey splashes out of his tumbler, leaving dark spatter across the upholstery. “– Hairy’s.”

Sam takes a step closer, tripping over one of the neat piles of books littering the floor like landmines.

“Bought her a couple of drinks,” Dean says. “Got my hand up her skirt before we even got back to the car. Christ, she was fucking dripping for it.”

Sam shrinks away like he can’t believe Dean would do this to him. That Dean _is_ doing this to him. ‘How could you?’ and ‘Why?’ trip over one another and get stuck in the soft tissue of his throat before they can tumble across his tongue. Dean knows the feeling.

He laughs. It’s ugly and barbed, laid bare in the harsh light of the overhead bulbs.

“Don’t worry, Sammy. Couldn’t get it up,” he says and downs the rest of his drink in one vicious swallow. “Guess you broke my dick, too.”

His smile is bitter and wielded like a blade. Dean knows he’s cutting both of them with it, but what’s a little more blood when there’s so much already? He lurches to his feet and stumbles toward the hall. He doesn’t need to see it to know the tick in Sam’s jaw as he struggles to find some sort of defense. Doesn’t need to look over his shoulder to know that Sam is following him like an ugly, overgrown duckling.

Dean isn’t surprised to find everything back in order when he reaches his room. Sam’s been busy. There’s no trace of the Steins’ rampage. Sam even picked up his gum wrappers. Dean notices he didn’t bother to take his book, though. And his gargantuan shoes are paired neatly at the foot of the bed.

“Don’t,” Dean warns and flops onto the bed. He faces the wall and hopes his brother will just listen for once in his goddamned life.

The dip of the mattress under Sam’s weight fires an electric jolt through his muscles. They lock up, aching with the tension of keeping still as gravity tries to roll him a few inches closer to his brother. Dean curls his arms into his chest and hitches one leg a little higher. It’s as close to the fetal position as he’ll allow himself to get under the burden of Sam’s beseeching eyes.

He flinches at the needy brush of fingers. “Don’t touch me you fucking piece of shit.”

“Dean, please,” Sam begs. “Can I just –”

“No,” he says and surprises himself with the finality of it.

Dean doesn’t start to unclench until the mattress springs back into place. It’s a long time after Sam turns off the light before he’s able to coerce himself into a fitful sleep.

***

It’s the smell of coffee that does it. That last trembling drop before the dam bursts and fury boils through his veins like the angry brown froth of floodwater. The wrenching pain of betrayal drowns under the onslaught, and relief washes through him. He’ll take rage over heartbreak any day.

 Dean cracks his grainy eyes again and stares at the cheery red cup while it taunts him - a perky ‘Sam’ printed on its side in tidy black letters. The smitten barista even stole an extra moment to add a jaunty smiley face and a phone number in her perfect penmanship.

He snorts in disbelief and cringes. If Sam had been fooled into thinking he was still asleep (unlikely), Dean had just given himself away. Anticipation marches across his skin like an army of ants over the sticky corpse of a cockroach, rotting in the summer sun. Sam’s breath is quiet, controlled, from his seat at the desk. His anemic shadow looms over Dean, carried on sallow bands of light from the desk lamp. Dean drops the charade and pushes himself upright. 

Sam holds his breath as Dean picks up his offering. The slightest irregularity in his brother’s breathing is enough to set off alarms in Dean’s skull. He can’t decide if he should laugh or cry about it. Anger fades to a dull thrum and he almost gives in. Almost gives Sam the reassurance that he craves. Not forgiveness – not yet – but the gift of acceptance to prove they’ll come back from this.

That they even can.

The paper cup is halfway to his mouth when he spots the impish smile beaming up at him. A mental flash of the barista’s fucked out grin as Sam tucks himself back into his favorite pair of jeans roars through him. Rage sparks bright and dangerous in his chest and he tosses the lukewarm bribe in the trash on his way to the bathroom. Memories fill the air – thousands of moments at his brother’s side – as bitter coffee seeps into the layers of Sam’s crumpled napkins and used tissue lining the bottom of the wastebasket.

The tile is cold on his feet and he can’t stop thinking about those goddamn blueberry muffins.

Sam’s – what? Fuck buddy? Girlfriend? – shows up in their kitchen with Starbucks in hand and Sam thinks he can just smooth it all over with another coffee? It’s so typical of his brother he wants to scream.

Dean steps into the shower, doesn’t even remember turning it on. He thinks he hears Sam sobbing over the cascade and tells himself he doesn’t care.

 He repeats it again and again.

Deep breath in. _She doesn’t mean anything._ Long exhale.

She doesn’t mean anything, but Sammy brought her home. To _their_ home. He walked her right through the front door and showed her all their secrets. Laid out all the little pieces of themselves they keep hidden away from the world, and invited her to toy with any that caught her interest.

It doesn’t mean anything if there are colors under her skin or that they seem to have caught _Sam’s_ interest.

Breathe in. _It doesn’t matter_. Breathe out.

Sam fucked up and he’ll come back to his senses now that Dean is home. He’ll be sorry and never see her again. They’ll sweep Dawn under the rug to keep Ruby and Lisa and Amelia company. Nothing has to change.

He doesn’t care and it doesn’t matter, but the weight of it is grinding his bones to dust.


	3. Chapter 3

Their first hunt After is a disaster. Sam keeps stealing looks when he thinks Dean won’t notice, and Dean’s pretty sure the kid jabbing needles into his calf got his medical degree online. He prods at his throbbing nose and glares at his brother.

It isn’t broken – Sam pulled his punch at the last moment – but the pain is bright and Dean’s pissed.

Sam leans back in the too-small hospital chair and crosses his arms. He doesn’t look even a tinge apologetic. “You had it coming,” he says.

Dean is so not in the mood for this right now. He wants to be anywhere but here, exposed under the bright fluorescent bulbs in this ridiculous paper gown that barely covers his dick. If only there was something he could put between him and his brother other than this flimsy bile-green privacy curtain. He turns away and pokes at the deep bite marks in his leg. The shots are starting to kick in.

“Come on, Dean. Please. Just talk to me.”

Ignoring Sam is easy.

Okay, not easy. Easier _._ After all, he’s been practicing for weeks.

Dean took a page from Sam’s book and tossed it, along with his shoes and not-so-neatly folded clothes, into the hall. Slammed the door behind him.

The temperature between them dropped another five degrees every day that passed without a lead on the Darkness. Ten, when Dean found two muffin wrappers in the kitchen trashcan. Frustration simmered under his skin until he was ready to boil over. Little lightning flashes of fury crackled along his spine every time his brother turned a page or asked for a file.

Dean worked diligently to perfect the art of disappearing before his brother got more than a foot into same the room. Another week or two of this shit and he’d be able to take the act to Vegas. He’d been ready to jump in the Impala and drive her headfirst into the bunker wall – run over his goddamn brother while he was at it – when Sam crept up and slapped this case in front of him.

And now he’s here, with a (not quite) broken nose, raccoon bites – sorry, _azeban_ bites – peppering his leg, and Sam crawling up his goddamn ass. Again.

“I’m not sorry.”

Dean actually meets Sam’s eyes, lets his brother know exactly what he thinks about _that_ statement. Sam at least has the grace to blanch under his withering glare. Dean feels a small pang of triumph. It’s gone before he can pick it up and enjoy it.

“I’m not sorry about punching you,” Sam clarifies. “I didn’t mean… you know. Fuck, Dean. You could have rabies! What was I supposed to do?”

Dean prods at the claw marks crisscrossing his brand new puncture wounds, tracing them with his finger while he avoids Sam’s imploring eyes. He longs for the doctor to come give him his rabies shots – _fucking rabies shots, man_ – and stitch him up before Sam gets too worked up.

The doctor doesn’t, of course, and Sam does.

Sam’s at his bedside, looming over him, before Dean can process the movement. “You needed the shots,” Sam insists as he pushes into Dean’s space. “What the fuck else was I supposed to do?”

“How about _not_ stick your dick in some random chick while I’m lying in a field thinking you’re dead?”

It feels good knowing he can still hurt his brother. That he can cut Sam up a little in return. Dean slips the mask of sarcasm more firmly into place and shows Sam his teeth. They’re as sharp as his words.

Dean’s back to playing with his leg when the kid in the white coat nearly gets mowed down as Sam flees through the narrow gap in the privacy curtain.

“All numb?” Doogie asks as he flips through Dean’s chart.

***

Dean doesn’t look at Sam when he opens the door and hobbles into the passenger seat. Sam turns the key and Dean finds solace in Baby’s strong vibrations as she finds her stride. His eyes don’t stray from the windshield or the perfectly manicured trees beyond it. The quiet breathes, deep and menacing, as it moves between them. Sam cracks first and jabs the power button on the tape deck. Dean counts it as a win when Sam throws the Impala in reverse with a huff.

Dean still hasn’t moved when they pull up to the motel forty minutes later, though some of his manufactured calm seems to have worked its way into his brother.

“She’s not, you know,” Sam says into the miles between them. The soft pings of Baby’s cooling engine ring in Dean’s ears like sirens. “Dawn. She’s not just some random girl.” Sam’s voice is flat, quiet in the stillness.

The silence pushes down on him, a heavy blanket to keep his pulse from tearing through his flesh and leaving him bleeding out in the front seat.  

“Okay, Sam,” Dean says, and struggles out of the car. The night clerk barely even looks at him as he slides the key to a single across the counter.

They don’t speak much after that.

Weeks pass in silence as summer gives way to an early fall. Dean doesn’t give an inch. The only things he’s said to Sam – other than that one biting accusation in the emergency room – have been about a case.  If he’s feeling particularly generous, he might throw in a complaint about how much information they _haven’t_ found on the Darkness.

Once, Dean shouts a warning and Sam narrowly avoids a piano bench flying at his head. The ghost bursts into flame a moment later. When Sam tries to thank him, Dean turns and walks away. There really isn’t anything left to say.

Every time they stop at new motel, Dean walks to the office alone. He comes back with two keys and pretends he doesn’t see Sam’s heart break a little more.

Twice, after they pull over for some shut-eye, Dean relents and passes a beer over the seat when Sam asks for one. Each time, Sam looks pathetically grateful and falls asleep with a smile on his lips. He seems to be under the impression everything will be better in the morning. _It won’t_ , Dean thinks. He spends his nights in the car staring at the roof and fantasizing about the look on Sam’s face when he wakes up to find himself abandoned.

Dean never leaves, though.

Both times, when Sam climbs back into the front seat, he learns the death of hope is just as painful the hundredth time as it is the first. Dean can see it flickering across his brother’s face from the corner of his eye. He shoves a tape into the deck and reminds himself he doesn’t give a shit.

Dean’s resolve gets stronger as the days crawl by and the odometer climbs ever higher. If he freezes Sam out long enough, his brother will snap and ditch the bitch that’s crawled into his bed. He sees Sam cracking under his casual disdain and the endless silence. The little tick in Sam’s jaw has been putting in a lot of overtime lately. His brother’s composure has been chipping away for weeks. Sam’s a powder keg, waiting for a spark.

His brother explodes when he least expects it.

Dean’s been sifting through musty Men of Letters records most of the evening. He’s minding his own business, bobbing his head along to Motörhead, when a book flies past his head. It’s something in Aramaic Sam’s been puzzling over for days. It bounces off the wall over Dean’s shoulder and lands on the couch beside him.

Dean doesn’t look up. He pounds out the drum line on the table – clashes an imagined hi-hat – and ignores Sam’s tantrum. It has the desired effect.

Sam stalks toward him and knocks the oversized headphones from his ears. “What the fuck is your problem?” He shouts. His voice is a thunderclap in the sudden quiet. Lines of desperation are carved into his face and his ragged breath is hot on Dean’s cheek.

Dean closes his eyes and breathes, long and slow, like Sam isn’t close enough to snatch the breath from his chest and use it for himself. He can’t give Sam what he wants. He _won’t_.

He doesn’t expect his brother to reach out and take it anyway.

Dean is more than a little terrified when Sam’s hand clamps down on his jaw and an electric bolt of power surges through him. “Fucking _talk to me_ ,” Sam orders and – God help him – Dean does.

Once he starts talking, he can’t stop.

“What’s my problem, Sam? _You’re_ my problem!” He shoves at Sam’s chest, frantic for some air of his own. Sam stumbles back a few inches and Dean shoots up the second he has the room. He’s still trapped between his brother and the couch, but he’s leveled the playing field.

“You bring some girl home – _to our home_ – then you fuck her and you what? Fall in love with her? Don’t even bother telling me about it? Let her walk in here with her goddamn muffins and see everything?”

“Dean, I – “

“Shut the fuck up, Sam. You wanted me to talk – fucking _forced_ me to talk – well now I’m fucking talking!” He shoves at Sam again, not that it does much good. At least Sam shuts his mouth. “You chose some girl over me and now you’re using your powers again? When the fuck did _that_ start happening. You want to know what’s wrong with me? Look in the fucking mirror. What the fuck is wrong with _you_?”

The power surging through him cuts off as understanding dawns in Sam’s eyes. Dean drops back onto the couch like a marionette with his strings cut.

“Jesus, Dean. I didn’t – I didn’t know. It just happened. The powers, I mean. I wasn’t trying to… Fuck, I’m so sorry. I didn’t even know.” Sam’s lip quivers like it used to when he was a toddler, whenever he wanted Dean to pick him up and make everything okay again. Sam's far too big for that now, of course, so he falls to his knees and buries his face in Dean’s lap instead.

“I didn’t know I still could – I’m sorry,” Sam blubbers into Dean’s crotch, fumbling at his thighs. Dean can feel his brother’s tears soaking through his jeans as Sam claws at his hips and burrows in deeper, nuzzling at his dick. “It won’t ever happen again. I didn’t even know.”

Sam only clings tighter – cries a little harder – when Dean runs a tentative hand through his hair. The ghost of Sam’s power is still sparking across his nerves, but otherwise Dean’s completely, blissfully numb. Questions he doesn’t really want the answers to mix with emotion he’s currently incapable of dealing with, but he locks that shit down hard. He sits stiffly, mind willfully blank and hand unmoving on Sam’s head, waiting for the sky to decide if it wants to keep on crashing down around him.

They stay wrapped up together until Sam’s tears have dried. Dean’s back aches and his legs have long since gone numb beneath Sam’s weight. He wants nothing more than to hear his baby brother telling him he’ll never see Dawn again. What he gets instead is a soothing pulse of power caressing along his spine.

Sam hangs on harder when Dean pulls his hand from his hair. He takes Sam’s biceps and pushes him gently, but firmly, away. “I’m going to bed,” he says and steps around his brother. His gait is rigid and his knee clicks as he makes his way to his room.

Dean can feel the weight of his brother’s eyes on his back and shudders when Sam’s hope washes over him. He can almost hear Sam telling himself things will be a little better in the morning now that Dean is talking to him again.


	4. Chapter 4

They’ve done a reasonably good job of avoiding each other since the incident in the library a few weeks ago. The next morning, Dean made a show of walking past Sam, pouring himself a cup of coffee, and walking back to his room without batting an eye. Sam pretty much kept to himself after that.

These days, the only sound to grace the bunker is the crash of slamming doors. Sam’s creaks open; Dean’s bangs shut. Dean’s hinge squeaks and Sam’s response echoes down the hall.

Evasion is an art, and they’ve both become masters.

That’s why Dean nearly shits himself when Sam opens his door and steps into the hall. It takes him a frantic second to realize his brother hasn’t actually shrunk. Or dyed his hair. Anger wells up along with understanding.

It’s Dawn.

In the bunker.

_Again._

Sam has made it abundantly clear that he has zero intention of dumping her, regardless of Dean’s feelings on the matter. That leaves him with two options: abandon ship, or learn to live with it.

He already tried running.

Dean made it halfway to Oregon before he had to pull over. It took over forty minutes for his breathing to level out; another hour to convince himself to get back on the road. When he finally goaded his hand into turning the key, he found himself pointing Baby back toward the bunker.

So, yeah. Leaving isn’t an option. But his brother won’t give him any room to learn to live with it, either. Sam pushes at him like the ocean tide, wearing him down and carting away pieces until he crumbles and gives way.

And now he has Dawn here to rub it in his face. _Fucking perfect_.

He turns to the side and tries to shimmy past her. It’s bad enough he keeps smelling her perfume drifting through the halls on the back of his brother’s Old Spice. He doesn’t want to see it when Sam sneaks her in, too.

“Hey, Dean,” she says when he’s nearly free. Her hand grazes his wrist and settles on his forearm, taking up the blank space the Mark used to occupy.

He blinks at her porcelain skin. Next to her, he looks positively tan. He can almost see the colors Sam loves so much crawling under her skin. Almost feel them pulsing into him where the tips of her fingers rest. _Fuckin’ trippy_.

“Hey,” she repeats and gives him a little squeeze. Dean’s bitterness fades and flows away on the wings of a gentle lilac breeze. Tension melts from his shoulders and he finally meets her eyes. He feels a little like that kid – _what was his name? Mowgli, that’s right_ – in that book he used to read to Sam. _Yeah, it’s like starting into the eyes of that giant python in_ –

“Huh?” He’s vaguely aware something is wrong, but he can’t get a read on it. He’s felt this way before, waking up in a strange place after a few too many rounds of morphine.

“Give him a chance,” Dawn says, leaning in. “Sam needs you. The way you’re treating him? It’s ripping him up. Eating away at him. Right here,” she finishes and pats his chest for emphasis.

He stares into her eyes – the exact same shade as his – but all he can see are Sam’s fingernails biting into the Impala’s steering wheel where Dean left him at the first motel After. It’s like he’s been dropped into his brother’s body, cursed with the intensity of Sam’s emotions. Instead of simmering anger, Dean feels Sam’s agony as he watches himself walk away.  Sam’s thoughts are laid bare before him as his brother realizes his world might _actually_ be ending. Dean might _actually_ leave him.

Dean’s back in his own body as suddenly as he popped into Sam’s, and the disorientation leaves him reeling.

He looks down at Dawn’s hand, resting directly over his heart, and wonders when she put it there. He doesn’t remember much after she grabbed his arm. He’s still puzzling down at it when she pushes up to her toes and whispers in his ear. “Go to him, Dean. Give him what he needs.”

Her words ricochet around Dean’s mind as she bounces down the hall toward the shower room. The cavernous ache that’s been plaguing him since she first popped into his life fades away. A new, blood-tinted one takes up residence hot on its heels, twisting his latent fury into something new – something vicious – while his cock stiffens in his jeans.

Dean ponders the cracked door to his brother’s room. He can barely distinguish the broad expanse of Sam’s back in the darkness. A shiver runs through him. He swings the door open a little more. Sam is wrapped around the extra pillow like he used to lock onto Dean.

It hurts to think about all the time that’s ticked by since he last felt his brother’s skin. Dawn’s right. The way he’s treating Sam is tearing his brother up. Hell, it’s killing them both. Dean will make it up to him – _give Sam what he needs_ – but not until his brother’s suffering matches his own.

Dean slinks into the room, shedding clothes in his wake, and knees onto the bed behind his brother. He ghosts his nose along Sam’s spine, breathing deep and feeling better than he has in ages. The sweet scent of honeysuckle that follows Dawn wherever she goes invades his senses. Betrayal blazes through him as he kisses the constellation of moles between Sam’s shoulder blades. The reminder of Sam’s treachery only adds fire to the violence already crackling under his skin. He kisses the nape of his neck and slides his hand along Sam’s flank. _Soon_.

Sam shuffles back against him, stretching like an overgrown cat before burrowing deeper into the mattress. “Mmm, Dawn,” he hums into the pillow.

Rage surges through Dean, honing the burning edges of desire into razor-sharp hunger. A crimson haze blankets his mind as he digs his fingers into Sam’s hip and grinds his aching cock against his brother’s ass. A low growl rumbles deep in his chest and works its way into Sam.

“Dean?” Surprise colors Sam’s voice as he tries to turn around. Dean pushes him down, uses his weight to press Sam into the bed.

“Fuck you,” he says and digs his teeth into Sam’s shoulder. “You let that cunt put her hands all over what’s mine.” The words snarl against Sam’s skin. “I can smell her on you,” the murmured words a perverse parody of a lover’s praise.

“Dean, I –”

Dean cuts him off with another bite to the back of Sam’s neck and shoves at the sheets pooled around his brother’s waist. Miraculously, Sam shuts his goddamned mouth. Dean works his way down his back with harsh kisses and angry nips while Sam trembles under the onslaught. When he tries to squirm away, Dean sinks his teeth into the meat of his ass and holds on tighter.

“Gonna remind you who you belong to, little brother,” he promises, fingers digging into Sam’s thighs. He uses the grip to force Sam onto his knees before he can make another escape attempt.

Sam freezes the second Dean’s hot breath ghosts across his exposed hole, like prey at the first hint of a lion. Dean’s fingers relax – the tiniest reward for Sam's obedience – and he runs his nose along the tender skin between Sam’s cheeks. The heady scent of _Sam_ floods his senses and his thoughts break apart, sprinting in dozens of directions before trotting back with hundreds of memories in tow.

The deep blush creeping across Sam’s sun-bronzed skin on that hot summer day when he first asked Dean to do this for him. The squirming in Dean’s stomach when he finally agreed the following winter. Sam’s enthusiastic shout when Dean discovered how much he loved eating his brother’s ass and dove right in. The rare instances where Sam lost himself completely and hitched his leg up, shoving Dean’s mouth where he craved it.

_Fuck, I’ve missed this_.

He’d forgotten how much he needed his brother. How much he wanted him. Dean shudders and spreads Sam open wider. He gets off on knowing how self-conscious Sam is about being exposed like this; knowing how much Sam gets off on these little humiliations in return.

Dean rubs his face against him, mouthing at Sam’s ass as he drinks him in. He nuzzles across Sam’s perineum and down to his balls, anger fading as his brother’s intoxicating aroma wraps around him like a fine mist. Fury wells up in its place when he finds Dawn’s sweet stench still clinging to his brother’s dick. It’s shocking and insulting, like a boot to the face.

“Fucking mine, Sammy,” he snarls into the puckered skin surrounding his brother’s center.

Sam jumps when Dean bites down, rough and ravenous, before latching onto his rim in a sloppy kiss.

Sam whines, cants his hips back – _he always was a slut for this_ – and shoves his ass against Dean’s hungry mouth. Dean licks and sucks at him with every ounce of anger and pain and betrayal churning through him.

Dean nearly comes when Sam forgets the last of his insecurity and grabs his own ass, spreading himself impossibly wide as he rocks back against Dean’s tongue. Dean wraps his arms around him and uses the leverage to tongue-fuck him in earnest. Saliva runs down his chin, thin rivulets snaking down to his chest, as he tries to force his jaw open wider. It’s dripping down onto the sheets by the time he realizes the sounds coming out of Sam’s mouth are actual words.

It’s a broken prayer of filth and need and love – all “fucking get in there” and “dying without you” – and he’s killing Dean, tearing through him and knocking down all of his carefully built walls until there’s nothing left. Nothing but _Sam_ at the center of his hollowed out soul.

Maybe he says something. Maybe Sam has simply had enough. Either way, he’s fighting Dean’s grip again, struggling to break free. Dean retaliates, dragging him against his face with mounting force until he realizes Sam isn’t attempting to escape. He’s trying to get to the lube. Sam’s fingers grope at the nightstand drawer like they claw for his blade, always just out of reach while the monster-of-the-week chokes the life out of him.

Desire shoots through Dean at the thought of hands – his hands – wrapped around his brother’s neck. He rears up on his knees – gives Sam the few inches he needs to yank the drawer open – and sinks his thumb into his brother’s ass. Sam hisses, jerking away from the intrusion as he scrabbles through the drawer.

It’s too much, too fast and Dean knows it. He hasn’t topped since the Mark sunk its hooks in; he’d been too afraid the violence lurking under his skin would bubble out and he’d hurt his brother. Okay, not hurt. _Harm_. Sam enjoyed a little bit of pain once and a while. They both did.

He may not be worried about damaging Sam anymore, but Dean’s not particularly concerned with making this _good,_ either.  There’s a pretty, crimson voice telling him a little hurt would be awesome right about now. Dean jerks his thumb free and trades it for the blunt head of his cock. Digs his fingers into Sam’s hips and rocks against him, threat imminent in the thrust of his hips.

Sam’s anxious whimpers are music to his ears. Dean’s cock throbs every time it catches on his brother’s rim and Sam tenses beneath him. His saliva has long since gone tacky in the cool air. He stills his hips and spits on Sam’s hole in warning: _get the goddamned lube or take it like this_.

“Please, Dean,” Sam begs as he finally gets his fingers on his prize. He thrusts the bottle behind him blindly, trying to scramble away at the same time. Dean can’t help but chuckle. It’s dark and twisted, bringing back memories of when Sam used to do this to him. When that soulless version of his brother would pin him down and take what he wanted, laughing while Dean cried in the dark.

The memory of all those terrible months when his brother wasn’t actually his brother but Dean couldn’t stop loving him anyway – couldn’t stop giving him what he wanted – is enough to snap him out of the ocean of enmity he’s been drowning in. “Sam?” he asks, desperately needing to know this is okay. That Sam needs him just as much as he needs Sam.

“Yeah, Dean. Yeah. Just – lube, man,” he says as he shoves the bottle into Dean’s chest. Relieved, Dean takes it and coats his cock before pushing back against Sam’s rim. Sam jerks his hips away again. “A _lot_ of lube,” he barks into the pillow.

Dean thinks he might have mumbled an apology, but he wouldn’t put any money on it.

He upends the bottle and dumps it directly onto Sam’s hole; shoves some of it inside with two fingers and adds a little more for good measure. As far as prep jobs go, he won’t be getting any gold stars. He grabs his dick anyway and lines up before seizing Sam’s hips and holding him still.

The first push is torture. Sam’s impossibly tight. Dean wants it all. Wants to rut into his brother until he forgets how much he hurts. He’s already halfway in when he registers Sam’s pained cries. They’re interlaced with a litany of “pause, pause, pause,” as Sam clutches at the sheets and does his best to escape the inexorable push of Dean’s cock.

Dean doesn’t stop. He’s having an impulse control problem and all he cares about is Sam’s heat around him and his brother’s moans in his ears. He’ll take Sam’s tears, if that’s all he can get.

He’s three quarters of the way there and Sam is whimpering into his pillow when the scarlet fog clouding Dean’s mind lifts for a brief moment of clarity. “Shhh, Sammy,” he murmurs as he rubs Sam’s back. “Relax. Let me in.” He pets Sam until he quiets before scooping up some of the lube that’s dribbled onto the bed and smearing it around the place where they’re joined. Sam lets out another faint whine. Dean shushes him again, strokes over the raw, angry skin of his rim and sways his hips gently.

Dean hums his approval when Sam shudders and goes limp. He pushes in the rest of the way and basks in the feeling of Sam clenching around him. At Sam’s first low moan, the reddish haze rolls back in. He loses himself to the punishing tempo of his hips and the crescendo of sound pouring out of his baby brother. Bliss roils through him, breaking against his insides like whitecaps against a precipice.

“Dean, please. Please…” Sam’s doing his best to get his knees up under him. His back cracks loudly as he twists around.

It’s distracting as hell and it’s pissing Dean off.

Dean shoves him down into the mattress, gets a good grip on the back of Sam’s neck and pounds into him harder.

“De, please. Wanna see your face,” Sam whines into the bedspread and fuck if it doesn’t make Dean’s balls draw up more.

“No,” he says and hauls Sam into his lap, grabs his hair and wrenches his head to the side. “Didn’t wanna see my face when you were fucking _her_ ; you don’t get to see it now,” he rumbles against Sam’s ear. It’s been so long since Dean’s taken charge like this. He knows how much Sam loves it. How much he always has, when Dean forces him to beg so pretty.

Except Sam’s crying.

He’s crying and babbling about how sorry he is and how much he loves him and that’s not what Dean was going for _at all_. Sure, he wants Sam to hurt like he does, but something so much deeper _needs_ to keep his brother safe and whole and happy.

Dean pulls Sam’s head around and kisses him hard. The taste of copper sparks against his tongue as he works it deeper. “Don’t leave me,” Sam mumbles into his mouth.

“Not leaving,” Dean replies as he pulls out and rolls Sam onto his back. Thunderclouds still roil through him, but taking care of his brother takes precedence. “You’re mine, Sammy,” he says and swallows Sam down. Dawn’s taste slaps him in the face. He sucks it away until there’s nothing left but his brother and sinks two fingers back into Sam.

Sam yanks on his hair and Dean pulls away, ambivalent to Sam’s dissatisfied grunt when his abandoned cock slaps back onto his abdomen. Dean may have caved to his innate desire to give his brother what he needs, but that doesn’t mean he has to roll over and give Sam everything he _wants_. Dean still has his pride, after all.

He plunges four fingers into Sam’s ass, pistoning them against his prostate. “Still pissed, Sam,” he says with an evil smile. “This doesn’t mean you’re off the hook.”

“Yeah, De. Yeah. Fuck me,” Sam gasps between moans. Dean has no idea if Sam’s agreeing he’s still in trouble or if he’s just babbling like he always does when Dean sticks something up his ass. Either way, he doesn’t really care, can’t really focus past the undulating fog in his head. He shoves Sam’s knees up to his ears and replaces his hand with his dick, hammering home before Sam has the chance to whine about it.

Sam yelps and grabs his thighs, filth gushing out of his mouth like the slick from his cock.

The flush creeping down Sam’s chest tells Dean he’s getting close. It isn’t enough though – not for him, at least – and he wraps his hand around his brother’s throat. Sam’s eyes snap open. After a brief hesitation he tilts his chin up, almost imperceptibly, and Dean starts to squeeze.

Sam loses his words first, and then his moans until there’s nothing left but the occasional choked off breath. He doesn’t break eye contact, though, so Dean clamps down harder. He lets up for a moment when Sam’s hand flies to his wrist, allowing only enough oxygen to draw this out a little longer. Sam’s face is as red as the fog when Dean finally gives him a slight nod. Gives him what he needs.

Pain lances up his arm as Sam grinds the bones of his wrist together. His other flies to his cock and he jacks himself hard as his muscles clamp down and ripple around Dean. Thick stripes of come shoot over his chest and splash against his jaw. Sam’s still coming when his eyes drop shut. Dean releases the pressure and lets his own orgasm roar through him.

Dean rolls off and flops down at Sam’s side as the edges of the haze take on shades of purple and black.

Neither of them moves. Dean stares up at the ceiling. Unease stirs in his gut. He can’t quite figure out how he got here. He hadn’t even wanted to talk to his brother when he woke up this morning, let alone fuck him. So why is he lying here with come drying on his dick and Sam inching closer?

“You brought her to the bunker,” Dean says. The words are out before he can stop himself. Sam drapes his arm over Dean’s chest. Dean kicks himself for giving Sam the impression he’s okay with this: talking, Dawn, fucking _cuddling_ … all of it.

“She’s a hunter, Dean.”

That gets his attention. Dean looks over at his brother. Hallway light gleams off the flecks of come spotting his face. Sam is eying him steadily, so much closer than he should be. “She’s a hunter,” Dean repeats dumbly.

Sam nods and edges closer still. Dean can feel his brother’s body heat leaping across the scant distance between them. Sam drapes one leg over Dean’s, tucks his heel under Dean’s ankle and settles in for the long haul. “I didn’t know. Not at first. We went back to her hotel and I put it together when we got there. She’s here on a case.” Dean relaxes a little as the familiar weight of Sam’s torso settles on his chest. _If she’s here on a case, she’ll be leaving when it’s over_. “She’s been tracking the Darkness.”

Dean springs up on his elbows in spite of his brother’s bulk. It sounded like Sam said the girl he was fucking on the side was hunting the fucking Darkness. The thing they haven’t been able to find a single fucking crumb of intel on. “She’s been _what_?”

“You heard me, Dean. She was following the red lightning.”

“Jesus, Sam! And you couldn’t have fucking mentioned this any sooner?”

“Was, Dean. _Was_. She tracked it here and then it just… stopped. There haven’t been any leads since. Maybe the Darkness learned to cover its tracks or something,” Sam says, voice tripping and scraping its knees over the ruin of his throat. “And don’t start that shit. I would have told you if there had been anything we could do.”

Dean gapes at him and Sam glares right back, looking angrier by the second. Dean opens his mouth – to say what, he has no idea – but Sam bowls him over before he can get any words out. “I didn’t tell you about the hunting because – in case you haven’t noticed – you’ve been too busy acting like a little bitch to talk to me.”

“Oh, that’s really fucking rich, Sam,” Dean snarls as he kicks his leg free and tumbles out of the bed. He grabs his boxers and fights to get them on the right way. Sam looks ridiculous with his legs splayed wide and his own come on his chin. Dean’s having some trouble reconciling his fucked out brother with the conversation they’re having.

_Give him what he needs_ , Dawn’s voice says and his stomach takes an alarming jump to the left.

_What the fuck?_ Did Dawn do something to him? Did _Sam?_ Is that why he’s here right now watching his come trickle out of Sam’s ass?

“What the fuck did you do to me?” he demands. It’s easy to ignore the soft push of Dawn’s voice – the bruised remains of her influence – now that he knows what’s happening. Or was it Sam whose will he was bending to? Fuck, he doesn’t even know anymore.

“I didn’t do anything.”

“What the fuck was this then?” Dean asked, waving his hand between them. “I didn’t fucking want this!”

Sam looks stricken. He shakes his head and his lips are moving but nothing’s coming out. The damn bursts and stammered words break free. “Dean, I didn’t – I wouldn’t…”

“You _did_ , Sam! You forced me to talk when I didn’t want to and now you – you… Jesus. Fuck, Sam.”

He’s going to pass out. Spots flicker at the corners of his eyes and the room closes in. He’s vaguely aware of Sam talking. He can’t focus on the words. Can’t focus on anything but the way that red fog bubbled through him the instant Dawn laid her hands on his arm. Dean’s beginning to think those faint colors flowing out of her fingertips weren’t an illusion after all.

_I’m gonna be sick._

“Dean, _stop_ ,” Sam says and God help him, he does. He stops everything. Teeters there on one bare leg with the other shoved halfway into his pants. He can feel Sam’s power buzzing beneath his skin like an electric current. It wraps around his nerves, keeping the frantic signals his brain is trying to send out from reaching his body. The sensation vanishes in an instant, only to be replaced by a ghostly tongue of remorse lapping at his skull while Sam watches him with wide, begging eyes.

The alien feelings burrowing through his mind are infinitely more disturbing than Sam taking control of his body. Dean’s been giving _that_ to his brother for years. He’s grown accustomed to yielding before Sam, but the intensity of the ‘forgive me’ and ‘need you’ slamming into him brings him to his knees.

He’s still on the floor clutching his head when he notices Sam kneeling in front of him, gripping his arms and shaking him. It isn’t a panic attack, though that seems to be the assumption his brother is operating under. Dean’s breaths are deep and even. His heart beats steadily, calm under the relentless press of Sam’s massive hand where it paws at his chest. All systems are a go, yet he’s still heaped on the floor, staring vacantly at his brother. So, yeah. Not a panic attack. More like a tiny break from reality, a little distance between him and the incessant push of his brother’s thoughts into his own.

Sam’s power thrums through his veins, cozied up with his own treacherous blood. It’s nowhere near as strong as when it first forced its way in. The apologies have been replaced with a steady stream of ‘you’re okay.’ It’s strangely comforting and downright disturbing at the same time.

It hits him with the abruptness of a car crash: _Sam has no idea what he’s doing_.

“Get out of my head, Sam,” he says and meets his brother’s eyes. The concern on Sam’s face melts into confusion. Dean spots the moment he gets it. Sam’s mouth drops open in horror. At almost the same instant, power whumps through his system as Sam slams the door to their connection shut.

Dean deliberately extracts himself from his brother’s hands and rises to his feet. He knows Sam will take it as a rejection – he should – but he can’t find the energy to care. _It’s too much_. Now that Sam has cut off the current of power, the lack of it is making Dean edgy. He shouldn’t be feeling its absence so acutely. Not unless he’d already grown used to the low hum coursing through his body.

_How long has this been going on?_

Was the faint buzzing beneath his skin when he walked into Sam’s room because of something Dawn had done? Or was it Sam? He’d been telling the truth when he said he didn’t wake up this morning wanting to fuck his brother.

Whatever the case, he can’t wrap his head around it with his pants puddled around one ankle and his brother gaping up at him from the carpet, silently begging him to make it all better.

“I need some time,” Dean says and steps out of his pants. He leaves them discarded on the floor along with his little brother, never looking back. The door closes with a soft click. The finality of it echoes through the halls in a way the previous slamming never had.


	5. Chapter 5

Dean’s been circling closer and closer to Missouri’s house for the past week, so he isn’t particularly surprised when he turns the corner to find her standing in the middle of the cobblestone path leading up to the driveway. Missouri eyes him impatiently as he kills the engine, hands fisted resolutely on her hips. It reminds him of his father. John had always adopted the same stance whenever he was about to give Dean a stern talking-to.

Still, after nine days in the car with no one but his own demons to keep him company, she’s a welcome sight. “Oh, honey,” she says as he reluctantly climbs out of the Impala. Her high, breathy voice brings back bittersweet memories of the last time he’d seen her, back when the world was simpler and he and Sam were just finding their way back to each other. Back when Stanford had been the worst thing to come between them.

His thoughts grind to a halt when she takes his elbow and nudges him toward the house. “Do you like it?” she asks. “The paint, I mean. I had it done a couple months ago, but I think the trim is a little too blue.”

“Uh…” Dean had imagined this conversation going so many ways – played it over and over in his mind as he circled the state – but this isn’t one of them. If it had been, maybe it wouldn’t have taken him nine fucking days to work up the courage to cover the 255 miles between Lebanon and Lawrence.

“It was so beautiful in the summer sun, but now it just seems wrong for the season,” she chatters, shuffling him inside.

He was expecting a scolding for getting them into this mess to begin with, or at the very least for not calling before he turned up on her doorstep. The lighthearted pleasantries throw him, confirming this whole fucked up situation really is as bad as he thinks. Hell, maybe it’s worse.

“Ow!” The cuff to the back of his head surprises more than hurts, but still.

“You ain’t never heard of manners, boy?” Missouri asks as she steers him to her tiny coffee table. He wonders if it’s the same one she had last time he was here. “Now sit down, and ask me how I’ve been for the last ten years.”

Dean does as he’s told, sinking into the low couch with a “Sorry, ma’am.”

Missouri disappears into the kitchen as soon as he’s seated and the prompted question shrivels in his throat. He has no idea how to do this. Flirting? In the bag. Interviewing witnesses? It’s a little rough, but he gets the job done. Bitch at Sam? Nails it every time.

Carry on a cordial conversation with a middle-aged psychic? Dead in the water.

“It’s not that hard, honey,” she calls over the rattle of porcelain.

“So. How’ve you been?” He asks over the hiss of a teakettle. _Christ, this is awkward_.

“Oh, fine, honey. I’m doing just fine,” she says as she carries a tea tray in from the other room. “I’m retired now, you know.”

“Oh. That’s… nice.” He lets her set a mug in front of him. _Now what do I say?_

Missouri rolls her eyes and pours steaming water over a fresh tea bag. “Baby, you should really work your small talk. Nuh-uh,” she cuts him off before he can even ask for a real drink. “You need to keep a clear head. Besides, we’re fresh out.”

_I miss Bobby_.

"He would agree with me.”

_Well, shit._

He’d forgotten how unnerving it was to have her carry on a conversation without him. Missouri chuckles and slides the tea closer. Dean takes it with a halfhearted smile, savoring the heat creeping into his palms. The air grows heavier and the walls creep in a little closer as he struggles with the words, trying to ask the one question he can’t quite bring himself to utter.

_Do we make it through this?_

“You’re the moon,” Missouri says.

Her voice startles him out of his reverie and hot tea splashes down his chest. He hasn’t been this jumpy since he was dying of ghost sickness. Dean manages an unintelligent “Huh?” before she cuts him off again.

“Use a coaster. This table has been around longer than you’ve been alive,” Missouri chides and picks up where she left off. “You’re the moon. Have been all this time. Sam’s always been there to make you shine.”

“So, what? Sam’s the sun?” Dean asks, altering course and setting his cup on the coaster.

“No, honey,” she sighs. The pity on Missouri’s face has his heart jack rabbiting in his chest. “Sam’s the darkness.”

Dean glares. He can feel his pulse fluttering in his neck. Tremors rattle his hand, but his breathing stays eerily calm. He can’t quite wrap his head around what she said, can’t figure out if this strange state of limbo is the result of anger at her words, or because he recognizes the reverberation of truth they carry.

Missouri waits, unflinching, as she returns his gaze. Thankfully, she looks away before he lets himself believe. The breath he’s been holding stutters out of his chest, but his reprieve is a wistful, fleeting thing.

“He may not be _the Darkness_ , but it lives inside him still. It got in deep when he was such a little thing. That demon’s blood has been twisting around with Lucifer’s leftover grace down where your light can’t reach it. And it’s growing, baby.” She pauses, giving him a moment to steel himself against whatever she plans on saying next. “Every day your brother spends wrapped up with its source, that evil inside him gets stronger.”

“Its source?” Dean asks, picking up his cup of tea and cradling it in front of him. It’s a futile, pathetic gesture – a completely useless shield – but he can’t sit here, impotent, while Missouri tears his world apart.

“This girl that’s been working her way between you two.” Her voice rounds out the jagged edges of her words and he breathes a little easier.

_There are plenty of reasons she could have said such a thing. It doesn’t mean she knows_. Dean doubts he’d still be hearing such warm notes in her tone if she knew exactly how far Dawn was wedging her way in.

Missouri lets out an exasperated huff. “Oh, please,” she says. “I knew about you boys the first time your daddy pulled up with the two of you curled up in each other’s arms, asleep in the backseat of that car of yours. Even dead to the world, you were the only thing on that boy’s mind.”

His face burns as a blush creeps across his cheeks. Yeah, it’s definitely been a while since he’s had the pleasure of Missouri’s company. He wonders if he could ever get used to her shining a spotlight on his secrets and quickly locks the thought down.

“That’s the thing about soulmates,” she says. “They tend to find their way to each other, whether it’s socially acceptable or not.”

Feelings war with one another for control of Dean’s tongue. Missouri waits quietly while they sort themselves out.  “So, Dawn’s the Darkness?” he asks.

“She is.”

“What does she want with Sam?”

“She wants to watch the world burn.”

“No shit. What else?” The phrasing earns him a reproachful glance, which he promptly ignores. He’s allowed to be upset. _You can just deal with the fucking language._

Missouri narrows her eyes and hums disapprovingly, but carries on. “Dawn needs your brother, Dean – either him or you – to finish what she started. She needs to bind with one of your souls before her true power can be unleashed. When God and the angels locked her up, He turned her own power against her. He used it to lock the door to her prison and gave the key to Lucifer for safekeeping.”

“Why Sam? I was the one with the Mark. I’m the one who set her free.”

“You were the Key, honey, but she gave up on you. A long time ago.” Missouri chuckles, hiding a sad smile behind her cup. “She saw there was no way past that pig-headed love you’ve got for your brother, so she focused all her effort on Sam. Azazel made it easy for her to get her foot in the door, and Lucifer just held it open for her.”

Dean’s stomach drops when Missouri rises and gently takes the cup from his hands. It changes its mind and tries to crawl up his throat instead when she sits down beside him on the tiny couch.

“She spent eons using the Mark to twist Lucifer to her liking. Sunk her talons in good and deep until he was unrecognizable as God’s favorite _.”_ She squeezes Dean’s knee and his heart falters. Air deserts him as Missouri presses on. _“_ Down in the Cage, when Lucifer forced his way into Sam’s body – into his _soul_ – her power came, too.”

_Can’t breathe_.

“You can.”

_Can’t. Sammy._

Memories of his own time in hell bombard him with flashes of red. Hands and cocks burrow into his body in tandem while he screams his brother’s name and agony sparks along his synapses. Missouri’s living room wavers and dims as images of Sammy enduring the same horrors blaze across his mind. 

“Shhh. Deep breath in.”

Dean’s stomach lurches like he’s on a narrow staircase and misses a step, but the sensation doesn’t stop. He just keeps falling and falling.

“Good. Hold it, now.”

_Sammy?_

“No, baby. It’s just me. Breathe out.”

_Missouri?_

“That’s right. Keep breathing.”

Dean focuses on her quiet crooning – the steady rise and fall of Missouri’s chest under his cheek – and the memories finally begin to recede.

It’s a long time before he has the energy to push himself back upright. She lets him go without protest, but stays close while he wipes at his face. Snot leaves trails on his sleeve and his throat feels like a cat clawed the shit out of it. It doesn’t matter though. He needs to know it all. _Keep going._

“Honey, I don’t think –”

_Tell me._

He sees her wavering and pushes a little harder. She sighs and gives way. “What you experienced. As bad as it was for you, it was worse for Sam.” Dean opens his mouth – tries to negate what she saw flashing through his mind – but Missouri ignores him. “You can’t even begin to imagine the depravity Sam suffered at Lucifer’s hands. Lucifer was shaping him into something new.”

“Sammy’s okay,” Dean insists. It had been hard, but they’d gotten through it. “I got him out.”

“You did. But Lucifer was more successful than you know, more successful than even Sam knows. Sam – _your_ Sam – he broke, honey. Lucifer cracked his soul wide open. Dawn’s power got in and it stayed, cozied up with Lucifer’s grace when you had Death pull Sam's soul out of the Cage.”

Dean doesn’t accept it. He _won’t_ accept it _. Sam’s just confused – a little more fucked up than usual – but he’ll be fine._ Dean clings to the shreds of hope like a life raft.

_Dawn can’t have Sam’s soul when it already belongs to me._

“She can,” Missouri informs him. “It won’t be easy, but she can break the two of you apart. She’s done it before: to Michael and Lucifer. She’ll do it again.”

There’s no way he’s going to roll over and let Dawn walk away with what’s his. “I won’t let her.”

“You already have,” she says, standing up and pouring herself a fresh cup of tea.

Dean flounders while he watches her, lost in the sudden distance between them. He recovers quickly. He’s never been one to rely on comfort from others, at least not from anyone but Sam. “Then I’ll go back. I’ll tell him what she is.”

“I know, honey, but you can’t fix this,” she says as she settles back into her own chair. Her eyes are appraising and Dean squirms under them. “She’s already made herself at home.”

“He’ll listen to me. You just said it. We always find our way to each other.” The blush roars back up Dean’s cheeks but he doesn’t pay it any mind. “We’re soulmates.”

“You can love a monster, baby. It can even love you back, but that doesn’t change its nature.” Her eyes burn through him, but the sorrow on her face softens the harshness of her words. “He’ll destroy you, and then – together – they’ll destroy the world.”

“I won’t let it come to that,” Dean says as he abandons his seat. He’s nearly to the door when Missouri’s voice filters through the discord of his thoughts.

“It’s too late,” she warns, quietly.


	6. Chapter 6

Four miles from the bunker, Dean’s skin starts to buzz.

_Just a little anxiety; nothing like needing to tell your brother the girl he’s in love with is the fucking Darkness._ It’s the only explanation, really. It can’t be _Sam_ he’s feeling. The prickle of his brother’s power hadn’t extended past the bunker’s garage when he left last week.

As soon as he opens the door, Dean stops lying to himself.

The crawling under his skin turns to pins-and-needles as he crosses the threshold. The sensation is about as likely to be due to nerves as Dean is to suddenly go vegan. He recognizes it for what it really is: the questing fingers of Sam’s power. Hell, at this point, the energy burrowing into him is almost as familiar as Sam’s _actual_ fingers working him open. The power latches onto his mind like Sammy latches onto his neck.

Sam darts into the foyer before the door finishes swinging shut. He freezes when he sees Dean, relief on his face and retribution in his eyes. “Dean,” he breathes, and it’s ‘missed you’ and ‘how dare you’ all at once. Dean shivers and makes his way down the staircase, caught in his brother’s gravity.

Power curls through him and he can’t figure out exactly whose will he’s bending to when he meets Sam’s lips in an angry clash of teeth. It takes everything he has to shove his brother back a few inches and the backlash of energy steals his breath away. Sam doesn’t seem to care about Dean’s need for oxygen; he’s back to attacking Dean’s mouth in an instant.

“Sam, stop,” Dean mumbles against his lips. Sam ignores him and pushes his tongue in deeper, humming as it flits across the roof of Dean’s mouth. Dean almost gives in, but saves himself when he catches Sam off-guard with his next push. “I said stop!”

Sam’s power grows stingers. It swirls through Dean like a swarm of angry hornets as Sam’s hand slams into his throat and Sam shoves back. Dean’s pulse hammers a panicky beat against Sam’s fingers where they clamp down over his jugular. He struggles for air, caught between the wall and his angry brother.

“What you say doesn’t mean shit,” Sam snarls. “You told me I was yours, Dean. Said you wouldn’t leave me and then you walked out the fucking door.”

The accusation stings.

“She’s the fucking Darkness, Sam!” Dean wheezes with the little breath he can manage.

_Shit._

Murder flashes in Sam’s eyes and his fingers dig in deeper. Dean can feel his brother’s hand vibrating with barely contained rage. Sam’s power crescendos and Dean’s feet leave the ground. His vision is starting to narrow, dark spots dancing around the edges.

“Sam,” Dawn says as she runs her hand up his arm. Her gentle voice calms his brother’s fury and Dean is pathetically grateful for the distraction. He has no idea when the fuck she got here – _not important_ – and she leaves them alone again with nothing but a whispered, “Easy.”

Whatever that was, it seems to have done the trick. Dean manages to keep his feet under him when Sam drops him.

He’s completely unprepared for the force of Sam’s slap. It throws him to the ground, where he blinks up at his brother in bewilderment, gasping for breath as he rubs at his cheek.

“Really, Dean?” Sam sneers. “You’re going to play the jealous boyfriend _now_?”

_Say what_? Sam’s erratic behavior isn’t doing much to clear up the confusion swirling through him. His brain is still a little fuzzy from the lack of oxygen, but Dean’s pretty sure this is a whole new level of crazy. He tries to tell himself it’s Dawn’s touch making Sam act this way, but Sam had his hand wrapped around Dean’s throat long before she interrupted them.

Dean can’t even find solace in his own lies anymore.

He contemplates the possibility of Missouri being right – that some of this is Sam’s own darkness and has nothing to do with Dawn – but it’s too much for him to wrap his head around right now. Not with Sam’s power still lashing through him with a tornado’s destructive force.

He drops his head and maps out the sore spots where angry bruises are forming on his flesh. “I’m sorry, Sam,” he says. “It’s been a really long day.”

The gale inside him dies down to a harsh wind and Dean knows he’s on the right track, knows Sam’s waiting for the rest of his apology. He swallows his pride and looks back up at his brother. “Sorry, man. I’m just tired. I didn’t mean it.”

A gentle breeze wafts through him before Sam’s power recedes back to its usual background hum.

Dean’s forgiven.

_For now, at least_.

“Is it cool with you if I turn in for the night?” he asks. “Maybe we can talk in the morning?”

Sam’s smile lights up the room and ice prickles along Dean’s spine. This time it has nothing to do with Sam’s power and everything to do with _Sam_. Dean represses a shudder and offers his brother a small smile in return. It’s little more than a spasm at one corner of his mouth, but Sam’s answering grin is blinding.

“Sure, Dean,” he says and bends down to press a soft kiss to Dean’s lips. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

Sam practically skips out of the room, oblivious to the fact that Dean didn’t even try to kiss him back. Dean doesn’t push himself off the ground until he hears Dawn’s lilting giggle bouncing down the hall. Sam’s laughter joins hers as Dean makes his way toward his room, alone.

His bed is cold and empty. The sheet twists around him as he tosses and turns, adding to his frustration. He resigns himself to another night of dogged wakefulness, rolling over to stare at the spot Sam’s nighttime reading once occupied. Sam’s belongings used to litter every surface like love notes. Now only blank spaces decorate the place Dean once considered home.

A fierce wave of longing rolls through him, threatening to pull him under.

Dean misses his brother like he used to miss his father, back in those early days when John had first cashed in his soul for Dean’s. The vacant space at his side is a gaping reflection of the hole in his heart.

A thin blade of light pierces the gloom and Dean instinctively reaches for the knife under his pillow, shielding his eyes against the brightness.

“It’s just me,” Sam says.

The door clicks shut behind him and Dean blinks into the sudden darkness. His night vision has gone to shit and he starts when the bed dips beside him.

“Missed you,” Sam whispers into the dark.

_Missed you, too, Sammy._

A familiar hand pushes against his chest and Dean goes with it. He sets the hunting knife on the nightstand and lets Sam guide him back down.

Sam stretches out beside him and nestles in for the long haul. Dean’s relieved when his brother doesn’t say anything more and Sam’s asleep in a few minutes. He always did go out like a light with his head on Dean’s chest and Dean’s heartbeat in his ear. Sam’s soft snoring leaves him to contemplate the ceiling, doing his best to ignore the tendrils of power creeping through his body.

Eventually, he gives up trying to keep Sam’s unconscious energy from its exploration. It’s not like it does any good. His brother has always stomped across whatever lines Dean drew in the sand – _apparently even when he’s asleep_ – and Dean’s not stupid enough to believe he can change anything now.

It’s oddly soothing to feel his brother inside him like this, once he just lets it happen. Sam’s power laps against him, small waves against his consciousness that lull him into a dreamless sleep. He drifts off with a faint smile on his face and the vague impression he should be more concerned about this than he actually is.

***

Dean wakes up alone. The sheets are cool beside him. The sedative effect of Sam’s power has worn off enough for him to understand that was what had settled him to sleep to begin with. _Gotta get it together._ He can’t expect to save his brother if he can’t even keep a clear head around him.

At least he knows what he’s up against now. He won’t be caught so off guard the next time. Dean braces himself for the conversation he dreads; the odds of Sam forgetting he promised to talk this morning are practically nonexistent. This time he won’t be so blunt with his brother. He’d learned his lesson. Besides, the deep purple imprint of Sam’s hand on his throat makes for a hell of a reminder.

A tantalizing scent greets Dean when he steps into the hall and it lures him to the kitchen. Sam almost never bakes for him. Last night might not have been a total bust after all. If Sam’s sorry enough to make him breakfast, he might be calm enough to hear what Dean has to say, too. Preferably without trying to kill him again.

Dean stumbles into the kitchen, skipping the coffee pot on his way to the oven. He’s about to sneak a peek – has one hand on the oven door – when a chuckle bursts past his lips. _How fucked are our lives that Sam cooking is more of an event than him trying to choke the life out of me?_  

Power strokes along his flank and Dean stiffens, his humor forgotten. Sam appears a moment later.

Bittersweet memories rain over him at Sam’s shy smile. “Hey,” Dean says.

“Hey,” Sam replies, floundering in the doorway for a moment before making a beeline for the coffee pot. “Want some?” he asks. The hesitation in his voice makes Dean’s heart melt.

“Yeah. Thanks.” Dean hovers near the oven while the awkwardness between them continues to grow. “So, uh. I guess we should talk?”

“Yeah, okay,” Sam says as he sets their cups on the table and folds himself in. He wears the same face he favored as a child, waiting for Dean to scold him for spilling chocolate milk on his favorite AC/DC shirt or something.

Dean had used up most of the selfish desire to hurt his brother over the past few months. The rest of it vanished when Missouri pointed out that pushing Sam away was driving him right into Dawn’s arms.

“I went to see Missouri,” he confesses. Sam’s eyebrows draw up, but he doesn’t say anything. “I was worried, Sam. Something's happening here and I needed to know.”

“Know what?”

This is so much harder than he thought it would be. He almost misses the feel of Sam’s hand around his throat. At least then he would have a valid reason for choking on his words.

“I was afraid you would choose her over me.” The words snag in Dean’s throat, but it’s close enough to the truth.

Sam’s shoulders drop with a sigh and he takes a long pull from his coffee. “I’ll never leave you, Dean,” he promises as he puts his mug down. Sam’s smile reminds Dean of some of the patients they came across back when they were hunting that wraith at Glenwood Springs. It complements the demented twinkle in his brother’s eyes quite nicely.

“I know, Sammy,” he says. He wishes Sam’s promise didn’t feel so much like a threat. The longer he studies his brother’s eyes, the more he wonders if Missouri was right. If it’s already too late.

Then again, this isn’t the first time they’ve been up against the wall. Dean was ready to die at his brother’s hand before, as he sat back and let Lucifer drive it into his face again and again. And he’s willing to let history repeat itself if it means Sam gets a shot at coming back from this.

“I found out something else while I was there,” he says, steeling himself for his brother’s wrath.

“Morning,” Dawn says as she saunters into the room. Sam unclenches while Dean’s muscles lock up.

Dean’s lip curls in disgust in the face of Dawn’s sunny smile. His blood pressure soars as she tugs on a pair of oven mitts. _Oh, fuck you, you fucking cunt,_ he thinks when she opens the door and pulls out two trays of perfectly baked blueberry muffins.

When he turns back around, Sam’s expression is a thunderhead and Dean’s caught out in the open. Power snaps through him like lightening. It isn’t a surge of emotion. It’s not a command. It’s an inquisition. Dean starts building walls as hastily as he can while his brother rifles through his thoughts.

He isn’t fast enough. Sam’s nostrils flare and energy crackles through the room.

Dawn comes to his rescue once again, chiding his brother with a soft, “Now, now Sam.”

The storm in Sam’s eyes quiets as she drapes herself across his shoulders and strokes his cheek. He leans into her hand and a soft smile flits across his lips.

Sam’s vacillating moods are making Dean seasick.

“How about some more coffee?” Dawn asks.

Dean graces her with a noncommittal shrug while Sam beams up at her. Sam waits until she’s fussing with the coffee pot on the other side of the room before he leans across the table.

He doesn’t have any smiles for Dean.

“Look, I know this is hard for you,” Sam says. Menace drips from his voice, even though it’s barely pitched above a whisper. “I get it. I do. But you’ve got to get your shit together. I love you, Dean, but Dawn’s not going anywhere. You can’t keep making wild accusations against her and you sure as shit can’t turn into a raging prick whenever she walks into the room.”

Dean’s about to lay into him, but the warm grin lighting up Sam’s face has his mouth snapping shut before anything damning can squeak out. Dawn sets Sam’s cup in front of him and holds another out to Dean. He eyes it for a moment, tries to find the escape hatch, but one glance at Sam has him reaching up to take the mug.

“Careful. It’s hot,” she warns as their hands meet. A cool green ripple snakes up his arm and latches onto the low thrum of Sam’s power that never seems to leave him these days. She uses his brother’s energy as a catalyst to expand her own. Dean can feel it bubbling up, pushing aside his organs, until a torrent of guilt breaks free and sweeps over him. His thoughts waver, mirage-like, for a moment before re-solidifying.

Dawn lets go and Dean sits there, steaming coffee in hand, mortified that Sam just had to scold him like an unruly child.

“I’m sorry, Sammy,” he says. It’s directed at his hands, but he knows his brother will forgive him the lack of eye contact. It’s not like he’s ever been good at apologies. “I’ll try.”

“You’ll try what?” Sam asks. _Of course he has to push it this time_.

“You know. I’ll try it.” He’s not being intentionally vague. Not really. He’s just pretty sure this conversation has gone somewhere completely different than he had intended. Missouri wanted him to do something, but he can’t remember what it was. Talk to Sam? Something about Dawn and Sam, he’s fairly certain. _But what?_

Dean starts when Sam clears his throat. “What?” he asks.

“I said I’m going to need more than that,” Sam repeats.

“Oh.” _Need more than what?_

“What are you going to try, Dean?” His tone is measured. Patient. Dean feels all of five years old again. Hell, he used to use the exact same tone on Sam.

“Uh, you know. You. Me. Dawn.” Dean feels like he just sold his soul (again), but Sammy’s face is so bright he can’t bring himself to care.

Sam leans across the table and captures his lips in chaste kiss. “We’ll make it work,” he says and plops back into his seat. “You’ll see.” Sam’s all exuberant smiles where he sits across the table and Dean grins back at him, so grateful to have Sammy looking at him like that after all this time.

When Dawn sets a tray of blueberry muffins on the table and sidles onto the bench next to his brother, Dean can’t help but think that loving Sam is like shaking hands with the devil.

Movements rigid and voice stiff, he does what he said he would: he tries. He even manages to turn toward Dawn and ask, “So… You’re a hunter?”

“Yeah,” Dawn answers and picks up a muffin. She twirls it in her hands while Dean fiddles with the handle of his coffee cup.

Sam beams at them both.

_Fan-fucking-tastic_.

He reminds himself he’s trying. Dawn’s making it difficult, though. She’s tucked herself up against his brother’s side – in _Dean’s_ spot – and Sam’s looking at her like she’s the only person in the room. She snuggles in deeper. Dean is pretty sure he sees the corner of her mouth quirk up in victory as she hides behind her muffin.

One glance from Sam has him reaching for a muffin of his own. He braces himself and takes another stab at getting to know his brother’s girlfriend. “You’re hunting the Darkness?”

“I was,” Dawn tells him. “I ran into a dead end. Can’t even figure out what the damn thing is.”

He nods along, ignoring the yawning pit in his stomach as he takes a bite. The blueberry sticks in his throat when he chokes it down. It tastes like his nightmares.


	7. Chapter 7

Dean’s shoulders ache from the hours he’s spent hunched over endless volumes of lore. So far, he’s found a six-hundred-page manuscript detailing the mating cycle of the South African _sinleza_ – some sort of demonic tape worm, as far as he can tell – and an even heftier work pondering the hypothetical domestication of black dogs. There’s not a single word on the Darkness in any of it.

The only thing worse than cracking a new file and finding another longwinded, utterly useless document is the vague itching sensation at the back of his mind. It isn’t Sam. Oh no, Sam’s presence hums along Dean’s nerves like a never-ending stream of electricity from the municipal power supply. There’s nothing vague about it. Subtlety has never been his brother’s strong suit.

This persistent niggling is more reminiscent of all those times he’s run back inside to pick up something for a case – something vital, like his favorite Judas Priest tape – but forgets what he’s come back for the second he crosses the threshold. The feeling makes his eyes roam around the library, hoping whatever he forgot waves its arms and jogs his memory. He almost always gives up, but this time he gets lucky.

His eyes land on the map ( _Missouri_ ) spread out across the table Dawn ( _the Darkness_ ) had been using to track the red lightning. The disquiet rooted firmly in his core blooms as memories bubble up. A friendly pat on the arm, hands brushing over a cup of coffee, a gentle caress while he stands frozen in the kitchen, overcome with lost memories and her secret on his tongue.

_Christ, how many times has she made me forget_?

His chair grates across the floor as he jumps up. _Gotta warn Sam_. Delicate hands settle on his shoulders and the memories wink out, one by one, before he has the chance to get fully reacquainted with them. He watches them go – faster and faster – panicking over their loss until every last trace of their existence disappears into an indigo fog.

Dean looks around the library for a moment. He can’t quite remember what he was getting up to do. _Hate it when that happens_. He shakes it off with a shrug and decides it’s time for a beer. After all, the Men of Letters were a bunch of goddamned windbags. He is definitely going to need some help getting through all these files.

Heavy footsteps echo in the hall and Dean tenses halfway into the refrigerator. In spite of everything – the Darkness, the lack of leads, Dawn – the sound of his brother’s approach is the only thing he can manage to work up a proper sense of foreboding over.

Before he’s ready for it, Sam’s in the doorway. Dean stares into the refrigerator and pretends he doesn’t know his brother’s there. Unfortunately, Sam isn’t a T. Rex and making like a statue won’t save Dean.

He’s already been spotted.

Dean can feel Sam zeroing in for the kill and does the only thing he can think of; he grabs a bottle and tosses it to him as the door swings shut. He forgets to grab one for himself, but it doesn’t matter. Whiskey feels like the wiser choice here.

Sam’s face is a curious mix of pleased and pissed off. Dean congratulates himself on his quick thinking now that Sam is forced to keep his hands on the beer instead of crawling all over _him_. His relief falters when Sam takes a swig and sets the bottle down on the table. It dies when Sam wraps his hands around Dean’s waist.

He should have known it was too good to last.

Sam’s been pushing at him for the past two weeks. If it isn’t about their new ‘relationship’ with Dawn, then it’s about getting into Dean’s pants. Sam’s been a broken record since Dean agreed to give this crazy thing a shot.

Nausea boils through him as Sam nuzzles behind his ear.

He doesn’t think the hand job he let Sam give him a few nights ago is going to keep his brother satisfied much longer.

Shame chases away the nausea as he remembers that night in the observatory. He had been staring up at the Milky Way, fantasizing about some alternate universe where he could be someone else when Sam snuck up behind him and draped himself across his back. The crash back to reality hadn’t been nearly as painful as Sam’s lips on his neck.

Acid raced along his skin in the wake of Sam’s fingers. His penis hung small and shriveled between his legs when Sam finally worked his jeans past his hips.

Sam wasn’t deterred.

No amount of ‘I’m tired’ or ‘not tonight’ had dissuaded him from his goal. Sam always was a stubborn bastard. Eventually, Dean stopped resisting and let him try, same as he always did in the face of Sammy’s overwhelming desire.

Dean leaned back against the cool brick, body stiff and dick disinterested, while Sam tugged at him in vain. Sam must’ve gotten frustrated. These days, patience wasn’t exactly his strong suit, either. Power sparked through Dean and his cock was suddenly hard enough to pound nails.

Sam didn’t waste any time. When he was finished, he licked his fingers clean and left Dean standing there with a bitter kiss on his lips and a ruined feeling under his skin. Sort of like the one he has now, with Sam’s nose behind his ear and his brother’s hands shoved in the back pockets of his jeans.

“Sam, wait,” he says and knows it won’t do any good. He’s right, of course, and Sam keeps trailing gentle kisses down the curve of his neck. His gut does an alarming flip when tiny hands join the massive ones already wrapped around him.

Dawn’s breasts are soft where they press against Dean’s back. Oh God, he doesn’t want this. _Not this._ But she’s pressing little kisses on his shoulder blade and Sam’s working at his jaw and Dean’s defenses are dropping faster than his junior prom date’s panties.

“Sammy, please. Just – Just not here, okay?” he begs and his stomach churns.

Sam must hear the submission in his voice, or feel it in the way Dean leans into his mouth, because he gives Dean’s neck a rest. Sam pecks him on the lips and guides him down the hall with a gentle push of power at the small of his back. Dawn follows close behind, rubbing soothing lilac circles between his shoulder blades. Dean can feel their powers intertwining beneath his skin, slipping over and around each other in a sensuous dance. They’ve started the party without him.

He gets swept up in the current despite himself. By the time they reach the bedroom door, Dean is just as happy to see a bed as he is that said bed belongs to Sam. He can’t imagine letting Dawn into his, but he isn’t quite able to walk away either.

His body wants this – screams for it almost loud enough to crowd out everything else – but his brain is busily working at making the rest of him bolt. Conflicting emotions war within him, leaving Dean frozen three steps into the room.

His indecision doesn’t seem to faze Sam or Dawn though. They’re back to running their hands over him as they twine their tongues together over his shoulder. They don’t seem inclined to pay him any more mind than that. Dean is painfully aware he’s little more than a prop between them, and still his body cries out for more.

Dean grunts his frustration and gets Sam’s attention long enough for him to strip Dean out of his shirts while Dawn yanks his belt open. Waves of power crash over him and pull him under. His body is lost to them while his brain cries out for help.

Dean’s uncomfortably aware of how he’s responding to their touch, how he writhes between them and bucks up into whoever’s hand is on him. How he bites at his brother’s lips when Dawn sinks her thumb into his ass.

It makes his skin crawl.

His metaphorical skin, at least. His actual skin is too busy singing their praises to make a fuss. It’s much more interested in Sam’s teeth as his brother mouths at Dean’s nipple, and in Dawn’s lips as she kisses her way down his abdomen.

Somewhere along the way, he ends up on his back with his dick in Dawn’s mouth. Grief courses through him as Sam pushes into her from behind. It tears his heart out to watch his brother fuck somebody else, but he can’t remember the last time he’s been this hard. Dean stares up at Sam, tries to catch his eye, but his brother’s gaze is fixed on Dawn.

Dean’s drowning and the love of his life isn’t even looking at him. It’s the last straw. His brain decides he’s a lost cause and vacates the premises.

The shock of the orgasm roaring through him jump-starts his mind, but Dean’s at a loss. There’s a sweet tang on his tongue and something pounding into him and he can’t quite figure out how he ended up on his hands and knees between Dawn’s spread thighs.

She peers down at him, shadows in her eyes. Dean is trapped in her gaze. Something clicks inside him – the haze of her power burned away in the wake of his orgasm – and the urge to run finally wins out. He tries to scramble away, but Sam grabs his hips and holds him immobile as he fucks him harder.

He can’t look away from the monster in front of him and he can’t get away from the brutal snap of his brother’s hips behind him. His eyes start to sting – _trapped_ – and Dawn’s grin sharpens as she snakes a hand down to play with herself.

Tears roll freely down Dean’s face by the time she lets him look away. A tranquil lavender fog guides him down to the mattress and he knows – feels it in his core – that he’s exactly where she wants him.

Dawn’s power courses through him, shining a light on all the things he’d rather not think about, as his tear-streaked face rocks against her thigh. The heartbreak he’s been trying to push down since this whole thing started, the flopping in his stomach at the violation of a stranger’s come sliding down his throat, and the crushing weight of his brother’s betrayal. It’s all there, sashaying through his mind in vivid color.

Dawn runs an encouraging hand through his hair and Dean’s memories take an even darker turn. Bloodied faces and broken bones jump out from the swirling mist. He surrenders under the onslaught, burying his face where Dawn’s hip meets thigh. _It will be over soon_ , Dean promises himself. There’s nothing left for him to do but tip his hips up a little more and wait for Sam to get off.

***

It hits him in the shower.

Phantom caresses cling to him like beads of condensation on a glass. His mouth is sour from when he stumbled into the bathroom and doubled over the toilet. Brushing his teeth helped a little, but Dawn’s tang still mingles with the taste of his own sick on the back of his tongue.

The afterburn of their touch crawls across his skin no matter how hard he scrubs, so he cranks the heat up as high as he can tolerate and tries again. His skin is red and raw, but Dean doesn’t care. He can’t see it past the fucked up barrage of memories parading through his mind. Flashes of Dawn’s fingers thrusting inside him flicker into snapshots of Sam’s teeth digging into his shoulder. It all bleeds into the dirty-belly-button stench of some stranger’s cock as it bounces off the back of his throat again and again, until it leaves Dean retching in the shower.

The full body memory of that unwashed stink engulfs him, right along with the fear and humiliation that always accompany it. He’d only had to do it a few times, only when the money John had left had run out and not even a fake ID had been enough to let Dean hang out _inside_ the bar. Back then – after he had picked himself up off his knees and wiped the come from his chin – he’d felt pretty much the same as he does now.

At least then he’d gotten paid.

He’d stayed in the shower back then too, trying to scour the taint from his skin. Those nights, Sammy’s warm little body pressed up against his side had been the only thing that had ever helped Dean glue himself back together. Every time, Dean had crawled out of the shower and eased himself into bed, certain that he’d never be right again. On each of those horrid nights, Sam had snuggled closer and Dean had taken solace in the realization that everything was okay as long as he had Sam.

Now, he doesn’t even have that.

The only person his brother is going to be pressed up against tonight is Dawn. Sam was already snoring softly when Dean squirmed out from under his arm and bolted for the bathroom.

Cooling water pelts his skin and the feeling he’s forgetting something important is back with a vengeance. There has to be something seriously wrong with his brother. Sam – _Sammy_ – would never force him to do this.  

_Breathe, Dean_.

In. _Fuck him_. Out.

_Fuck him right in his fucking face._

A memory of doing just that sweeps through him, so poignant it steals the air from his lungs, and he sinks to his knees. Dean thinks he’s crying – hates that he probably is – but is powerless to stop as a tsunami of memories slams home. A particularly devastating wave crashes down and something essential short-circuits in his brain.

He is completely, blissfully numb.

Water beats down on him and he can’t feel it. He wonders, slow and detached, when he’ll start back up. _If_ he’ll start back up.

This time when he tells himself he doesn’t care, he means it.

***

Dean’s shoulder aches. It’s an odd thing to feel when he’s been dead for so long. He realizes what a strange observation that is – that he’s actually dead – about the time he notices how cold it is. He isn’t surprised though. Dead bodies are supposed to be cold, after all. The naked thing makes sense, too. But he can’t quite figure out why he’s in the shower.

_Did I fall? Crack my head open?_

Understanding comes in a flash and he struggles to push himself back up to his knees. Freezing sheets of water beat down on him without mercy as he fumbles for the shower handles, desperate to make it stop.

He tries to remember the last time he had a full blown panic attack. It had to have been at least a few years ago. Sometime right after he got back from Purgatory, back when Sam was off pretending not to be his brother (again). Before Sam made promises he didn’t mean. Ones he had no intention of keeping.

Dean certainly hadn’t knocked himself out cold during one of his episodes since that night he woke up from some Hell dream and had run headfirst into a door frame. Sam had started up with the whole ‘breathe’ thing right afterward. He’d gone back to tucking Dean to his chest like he’d taken to doing before Dean died – _for real, not in the shower_ – and lulling him to sleep with soft puffs of warm air against the back of his neck.

Every other time the world was spinning out of control – every time _Dean_ was spinning out of control – dark spots swirled across his vision like flurries of soot-blackened snow. Everything flicked over to HD, but someone tossed the speakers in the bath. He drowned while bees danced across his skin and Sam clutched at his face, moving his lips in some sort of language Dean couldn’t even begin to comprehend.

This time he had – what? Powered down and fainted?

It doesn’t seem real, but the blood at his temple as he stares in the mirror tells him it is. Freckles blaze across his pale skin like sparks from a forest fire. The dark patches under his eyes make him look more like his father than he should.

Memories broadside him like the eighteen-wheeler that had slammed into them so many years ago. It leaves him as damaged as the real thing had back then.

He understands, with startling clarity, how Dawn’s been fucking with him – with _both_ of them – from the beginning. His stomach rolls but he must’ve gotten everything up earlier. He can’t produce anything more substantial than a thin string of bile.

Dean knows what Dawn is now. Recognizes the way her power flows into him and twists his memories into whatever shape pleases her.

He gets it.

And just like that, he knows Dawn won’t be able to make him forget again. He’s as familiar with the path her powers take through his brain as he is with the grooves Sam has worn in his soul. It won’t take much to block them off.

Dean can stop her.

He takes what little comfort he can from the knowledge and pulls himself together. All he has to do now is figure out how to snap Sam out of her spell. If her power works through touch like he suspects, all Dean has to do is get Sammy away from her long enough for the effects to wear off. _Simple enough._

Dean remembers Missouri’s words, recognizes the kernel of truth in them, but can’t bring himself to give up on his brother. It isn’t too late. He’s not quite sure how he’s going to convince Sam to run off with him for a while, but he’ll pull it off somehow. Hope quirks the corner of his mouth up as he opens the door.

Dawn smiles back at him. She smells like Sam.

It throws Dean off for a second, but he manages to flash her a smile anyway. It’s hostile and arrogant, sculpted with the confidence of having the upper hand.

“Oh, please,” Dawn scoffs before she crashes their lips together. Copper floods his tongue and sparks fly down his spine as she forces her way into his mouth. “Don’t play games with a girl who can play them better,” she says against his lips. Her power wraps around him, leaving him tumbling into the dark when the ground drops out from below.


	8. Chapter 8

_Dean teeters on the narrow step, trying not to trip over his own feet as he drags his brother down the staircase. Sam may be a lot more difficult to maneuver these days, but the frantic pounding of Dean’s heart hasn’t changed a bit in the last 22 years. The hollow ache in his chest as hungry flames lick at the sky is pretty much the same, too_.

_The smell is wrong though. It’s too clean: less soot and burning flesh, more industrial strength spring day._ _It’s weird, and it sucks at his attention until he can barely focus on comforting his brother while Sam screams his dead girlfriend’s name. It’s right, but it’s wrong and –_

_You’re dreaming._

Dean detects the faint scent of bleach mixed in with foreign laundry detergent that had worked its way into his subconscious mind. Apprehension tickles up his spine. Sam only lets him clean the bunker with lemons and baking soda and other hippie crap like that. Dean dares to crack an eye and discovers the couch his face is buried in is the wrong color.

His knife is nowhere to be found. Neither is his gun.

Panic takes flight in his chest, but he wills his body to still as he takes in his surroundings. There’s no spark of heat from another body, no soft exhale to stir the quiet air. Only the soft beat of his pulse keeps him company. His muscles relax minutely and Dean edges off the couch.

Just because he _feels_ alone, it doesn’t necessarily mean he _is_ alone.

Cramps race along his spine from his uncomfortable position on the couch but he maintains his form, ready to fight or flee as the situation demands. He works his way over to the cookie-cutter hotel bed and is relieved to find his gun tucked into its proper place between the mattress and the box spring. His hunting knife is right where it should be, under the pillow.

Now that he’s armed, he’s much more inclined to fight.

His rapid heartbeat pounds against his eardrums as he pushes the bathroom door open. It’s the moment of truth. He holds his breath – steady for a perfect shot – as he wraps his fingers around the edge of the shower curtain and yanks it back.

Dean drops his arm and straightens out of his crouch. His back creaks in protest but other than having absolutely no idea how he wound up in this strangely upscale hotel room, nothing seems particularly out of place. His duffle sits at the foot of the bed where he usually keeps it. A note from Sam promises he'll be back soon. There’s probably a perfectly reasonable –

_What the fuck?_

His heart stops beating altogether for a second as he stares at his reflection in the mirror. He’s got a good two-and-a-half – maybe even three – weeks of beard growth and no fucking memory of what happened during that time.

The last thing he remembers is standing in the shower feeling like he’d been torn in half and gutted, trying to scrub the taint from his skin.

No.

Scratch that.

He remembers all of it. Dawn’s manipulations, the way she used her power to twist him and Sam to her will, the way he was so convinced he’d be able to resist her, and the evil gleam in her eyes as she pulled him in for a kiss. It looks like she had a few more tricks up her sleeve after all.

_She_ did this. She locked him in his own mind and left him to watch some fucked-up version of his greatest hits – Mom burning, Sam dying, hellhounds clawing at his insides, the works. All while she did God-knows-what to his baby brother.

_Sammy._

Need slams into him. It’s brief, but overpowering in its enormity. It steals the air from his lungs and the strength from his legs, leaving him gripping the sink and gasping for breath while he stares into a stranger’s face.

His skin is drawn a little tighter over his bones. Another wrinkle or two have moved in at the corners of his eyes. The dark splotches underneath seem to have made themselves right at home. Worse still is the haunted look that’s taken up residence _in_ them. The man in the mirror has been broken the way some men break horses – with pain and persistence.

Baby’s throaty rumble drags him out of his trance and beats back his dread. This is the chance he’s been waiting for. Dawn isn’t here. He wouldn’t be conscious if she were. He’s finally going to be able to get through to his brother.

He has to.

Sam’s silhouette passes in front of the window. A key card clicks in the lock. Then Sammy’s there, larger than life. He slips the leash of restraint and is halfway across the room before Sam has the opportunity to set his bags on the table. Dean wraps his arms around him and drags his brother against his chest before he’s fully aware he moved from the bathroom doorway. Sam is rigid against him. Self-consciousness edges out the need and Dean drops him almost as quickly as he snatched him up.

Sam takes a step back and gives him an uncertain half-smile. “Uh. Hey, man. So. I guess you’re feeling better?” he asks while his hand flutters uselessly at his side. The worry lines creasing his forehead smooth out suddenly as he makes a break for the nearest bag. “I brought you some soup.”

It takes Dean a moment to get with the program, a few seconds to ponder his brother’s odd behavior. _He thinks I’m sick?_ “Uh, yeah. I’m good. Listen, Sam –”

“It’s chicken noodle.”

“Sam, we need to talk.”

The nervous fluttering is back. “Yeah, Dean. Just… Eat your soup first, okay?” Sam pleads as he all but shoves the styrofoam bowl into Dean’s chest. His hands tremble and Dean caves, taking the container from him before he shuffles over to the other side of the table. Even with his back turned he can feel Sam unclenching. He hears it in the way Sam’s breathing loses its forced cadence and becomes more natural.

Dean’s mouth waters as the hearty aroma wafts up to him on a cloud of steam. He wonders how long it’s been since he last ate something. There’s no way to tell. Judging by the way Sam’s sitting there like he has Dean’s favorite dagger shoved up his ass, it probably wouldn’t be the best time to ask. There’s so much he wants to say, needs to get out on the table, but it’s better not to push. Sam will start talking when he’s ready. He always does.

Dean buries his own questions and gives Sam the space he needs to get comfortable, focusing on his soup instead. It’s one of the best things he’s ever tasted. Of course, he can’t be sure if it’s because it’s actually that good or if his hunger is making it seem far better than it really is. It doesn’t really matter, and he digs in with gusto after the first tantalizing bite. It scalds his tongue, but Dean doesn’t stop shoveling it into his mouth.

If the sudden stomach cramping is anything to go on, it’s been a lot longer since he’s eaten than he thought. _What the fuck is going on here?_

“I’m glad you’re feeling better.”

Dean starts at the sound of his brother’s voice. He was so wrapped up in his soup – in his own never-ending avalanche of thoughts – he’d forgotten he was waiting for Sam to start talking. “The soup is really good. Thanks.”

It’s the wrong thing to say.

Sam stiffens in his seat and his breathing becomes more precise. “Yeah, man. No problem,” he says and looks for all the world like he’d rather be somewhere else. Anywhere else.

_Shit_ , Dean chastises himself and slurps at another spoonful of soup. It doesn’t taste so good anymore. His stomach gurgles in protest and he decides to stop while he’s still ahead. It certainly won’t help matters if he pukes all over the floor. He slides the bowl away as Sam starts talking again.

“I’m sorry, Dean.”

_What?_

Has he figured it out? Broken away from Dawn the way Dean had tried to do?

“I know this has been really hard on you.”

Hope burns bright in Dean’s chest. He can feel it dancing through all the dark corners of his heart.

“That’s why I wanted to do this hunt together, man. I know you’re mad, Dean. You’re right to be. I haven’t done a very good job of being there for you lately, but I’ll make it up to you.”

Dean’s flying. He can feel the smile stretching his face, his cheeks ache from the force of it.

“I just. Dean, I want it so much, and sometimes I forget you need time to adjust.”

_Wait. What?_

“I mean, I know I’ve been pushy but –”

“Sam –”

“No, Dean. Please. Let me finish.”

Sam needs to shut the fuck up, to not say whatever he’s planning on saying. Dean looks at him – takes in the desperation on his brother’s face, the way Sam’s body begs to be heard – and caves. He gives Sam the green light to leave him gutted on the floor.

A tiny but genuine smile graces Sam’s lips. It’s fleeting. “Listen, I know I don’t tell this you very much, but I need you man. I’ve done a pretty piss-poor job of showing you that, but I’ll do better.”

Dean can barely focus on his words. _Why can’t he just get to the fucking point_? Emotions tumble through him faster than he can catch them and rein them in. Fear that Sam will choose Dawn over him, anxiety at the thought of being alone, and foolish hope that Sam’s about to say he left the bitch. He can’t settle on one and Sammy isn’t giving him much to work with.

In the end, it’s easier to sit here and let Sam tear him to shreds.

“We can make this work, Dean. We just need time. Maybe we can make a schedule or something. We can have a few days for just us and Dawn and I can have a few days. And then, maybe in a few months – after you’re ready, of course – we can set aside some time for the three of us?”

Hope jumps out the window, leaving is chest raw and bleeding in its wake. The fear, the anxiety, they stick around and keep Dean company. Anger comes crashing through the door and kicks them out a moment later.

“Oh, fuck you, Sam! Are you fucking kidding me? Why can’t you see it? She’s not even here and you’re still stuck under her spell.” He’s out of his chair and well into Sam’s space without even thinking about it.

“She’s all I fucking have, Dean!” Sam says as he pushes to his feet. He’s just as angry as Dean is. “You’ve barely said a word to me the past three weeks. _Weeks_ , Dean! I know I messed up – I messed up bad – but how long are you going to keep punishing me? This is killing me, Dean! When’s it going to end? Are you just going to lie around being a fucking jerk for another month or two and then disappear without so much as a fucking note?”

Sam gives as good as he gets, so Dean’s completely thrown off when his brother shoves him back a step and sinks back into his seat. It isn’t like him to capitulate so easily.

“I love you, Dean,” he breathes out. “I look at you, and I just love you, and it terrifies me. It terrifies me what I would do for you. I can’t even imagine what I’d do without you. And you’re just going to walk away and leave me all alone.”

Dean looks on in disbelief as Sam’s shoulders shake with the force of the emotion he’s trying to hold in. _That’s why he won’t kick Dawn to the curb_? His anger and jealousy can’t be the thing driving Sammy into the arms of the Darkness. It can’t possibly be this easy, but Sam’s voice is small and frightened when it comes.

“Please, De. Don’t leave me?” Tears pour down Sam’s cheeks as the dam bursts. He hides his face in his hands. A mantra of “Don’t leave me. Please don’t leave,” bursts out between sobs and sniffles and Dean is frozen where he stands.

This is the closest he’s been to Sam in months. Longer, if he counts the chasm the Mark had carved out between them. Snot drips down his brother’s face and blends with the tears he’s trying unsuccessfully to wipe away. It’s the most beautiful thing Dean has ever seen. He’s with Sammy now – his gorgeous, ugly crier of a brother – not the monster Dawn has been trying so very hard to turn him into.

It’s not a question of what Dean should do, never an internal battle. Sammy needs him and Dean gives without reservation. He drops to his brother’s feet, wedging his way between Sam’s knees.

“Don’t leave me, De. Please. I can’t. I don’t know what –”

“Shh, Sammy. Not goin’ anywhere,” Dean promises as he wraps his arms around Sam’s waist and buries his face in his brother’s heaving chest. It feels like a new beginning as Sam’s tears rain down on him. Dean could cry with the joy of it. Hell, maybe he is. Who can tell with Sam’s tears already soaking his face? “Never leaving,” he swears and surges up.

Sam’s teeth click against his as Dean pushes into his mouth. It’s frantic and salty and perfect. Technique is the farthest thing from Dean’s mind as he kisses and nips the tears from Sam’s face. The same seems true for his brother. He’s stopped begging Dean not to leave. Now, he’s just begging. Dean relents and straddles Sam’s thighs, pausing for a second to search for any tell-tale signs of Sam’s power coursing through him.

His dick throbs where it presses against his zipper. His skin sings where Sam has worked his way up under Dean’s shirts. His heart thunders in his chest and his lungs are fighting to keep up. Other than that, it’s quiet. The only energy humming through him is his own. His mind is as clear as a cloudless night.

His brother stares up at him, hands still and heart on his sleeve, waiting for Dean to pronounce him worthy. There are galaxies in Sam’s eyes and electricity crackling under his skin.

Dean gapes back in wonder. All this time – all this pain – and Sam is finally here with him, pleading with every line of his body for Dean to love him despite it all.

Dean holds Sam’s gaze ( _I love you_ ) and rolls his hips against his brother’s ( _I want this_ ).

Sam’s calloused hands are rough on his sides where they slide against his skin, but he holds Dean with reverence, like he’s the most precious thing on the planet. It makes him uncomfortable and completely at home at the same time, sort of like he wants to crawl out of his own skin and into Sam’s.

He allows himself the freedom to touch, to trace his fingers lightly over the fabric of Sam’s flannel. It’s coarse against his fingertips, giving him the faintest impression of solid arms beneath. It’s almost more than Dean can bear. He’s gone so long without – so long yearning for his brother and finding nothing but some twisted puppet – that the mere promise of having Sammy spread out beneath him shakes him to the core.

Sam feels it too. It’s written all over his face, apparent in the fine tremors racing through him, while he stays stock-still and lets Dean explore. He’s taken so much already, he’s not going to take any more – not until Dean lets him – and Dean loves him even more for it.

He rocks his forehead against his brother’s and breathes deep. The air is still warm from its time in Sam’s lungs. It smells of salt and coffee and _Sam_. He runs his hands across his brother’s shoulders, pulls him close, and grounds himself. He’s finally waking up from this nightmare and Sammy’s underneath him offering him the world. Dean hasn’t felt like this since the first time Sam locked eyes with him and pushed his way home.

The kiss burns slow when their lips finally meet. It’s like the first crisp swallow of beer after a forty-year Hell tour: perfect and sweet and everything he’s been starving for without even realizing it. He’s busy mapping out Sam’s incisor with his tongue when his brother tightens his grip and tries to deepen the kiss.

Dean slides off Sam’s lap, slipping like water through his grasp. “Easy, Sammy,” he says with a chuckle at the gutted face Sam wears in his absence. “Wanna make this last.”

Sam’s smile lights up the room as he takes Dean’s outstretched hand. He follows Dean easily and raises his arms when Dean tugs at the hems of his shirts, an ingrained response since childhood. This time he even remembers to bend forward so Dean can get them off. Dean nearly laughs at the memory of all the times he _hasn’t_ remembered, but Sam straightens up and the wide expanse of honeyed skin hijacks his attention.

He watches his hands glide over Sam’s chest and wonders at the softness of his brother’s skin, interrupted only by smoother ridges and valleys of scar tissue. Some people might see him as damaged, irreparably so, but to Dean he’s flawless. Sam’s scars tell the story of their lives together: the little moon-shaped one he got from a flying coat rack on his first salt and burn, the jagged white line where Sam had to stich himself back together while Dean was down in Hell, the little pockmark where Dean fished a bullet out of him after a bad day in Black Rock.

Dean remembers them all.

His fingers finish mapping out the familiar patterns on Sam’s torso and slip around his brother’s sides to resume their task on Sam’s back. Sam’s never been one to run, and his back is almost completely unmarred. Dean traces four long parallel bands of thickened flesh: remnants of a gaping claw wound Sam got as a thank you for shoving Dean’s dumb ass out of the way.

The next one hurts – a vivid reminder of Dean’s greatest failure – and he raises up on his toes to reclaim Sam’s mouth before his wandering hands move down to acknowledge it. Sam kisses him hard as Dean’s fingers dip into the pit over his spine. It’s forgiveness and reassurance all at once. Dean accepts it like he always does – tries to take it to heart this time – and slowly pulls his hand away from the old stab wound.

Sam smiles down at him when Dean finally breaks the kiss and tilts his hips forward in invitation. Dean’s answering grin is perhaps a little wider than he’d like to admit. He helps himself to Sam’s belt buckle and has him stripped of his clothing with the efficiency born of years of practice.

He urges Sam back onto the bed and trails his mouth over him with the same relentless thoroughness he’d shown earlier with his hands. Dean is merciless with his lips and tongue, leaving no corner of his brother untouched. By the time he spreads him open and dips his tongue inside, Sam is moaning his name and rolling his hips up for more. Dean maintains the maddening pace he’s set for them while Sam paws at his head and tries to work Dean’s tongue in deeper.

Sam’s eyes snap open and lock onto Dean’s when the click of the lube bottle echoes through the room. Dean stares back and lets Sam see his intent as he positions himself against his brother’s rim. He gazes down at Sam for another moment and gets lost in his eyes as he gets lost in his body, waves of emotion surging through him.

Dean’s orgasm doesn’t roar through him out of the blue like it sometimes does when Sam gets particularly kinky. It doesn’t spark along his spine, the sudden and inevitable result of their bodies grinding together. It sneaks up on him slowly, rolling him under and turning him out, seared and trembling in its wake. It leaves him limp and useless on his brother’s chest.

“Love you, De,” Sam whispers into his hair when his breathing calms. Light streams through the crack in the curtain, painting Sam’s eyes an alarming gold. They glitter as they follow Dean under, keeping him company in his dreams.

***

“Hey, Jody.”

“Dean?”

“Yeah, it’s me,” Dean says around the lump in his throat. It feels like back when Sam had dared him to swallow a whole hardboiled egg. _Fuck, that was a terrible idea._

Concern flows through the line. “Are you okay? How’s Sam?”

“That’s – uh.” His eyes flick toward the bathroom door. He hears the rattle of the shower door in its track and breathes easier. “That’s actually why I’m calling. Sam is –” _Shit, this is hard_.

“What happened?”

Jody’s voice is a cooling salve on his skinned nerves. He imagines it’s what his mother’s voice would’ve sounded like. Time and distance long ago blurred the two together in his mind. “The Darkness. She did something to him.”

_To us_.

“What? The Darkness is a _she_?”

His eyes dart back to the bathroom door. The patter of water shifts to accommodate his brother as he steps under the spray. Dean rolls to his side, cradles the phone to his face.

“Yeah. It’s – Her name’s Dawn. Sam thinks he’s in love with her.” Saying it out loud hurts even more than he thought it would.

Jody stumbles over her words for a moment while Dean struggles to free his own. “But, how –”

“I don’t know. She’s got these freaky powers. She touches you and you just do whatever she wants. Or she locks you away in your own mind while your body does who the fuck knows what and you don’t remember any of it.”

“That’s how she got to Sam?”

“Yes? No. I don’t know. Sam thinks they’re soulmates or some shit because he can see her.”

“You mean, like –”

“Yeah,” Dean says and swallows as best as he can. That damned egg is lodged back in his throat. “He says there are colors under her skin.”

“Oh, Dean,” Jody says. The kindness in her voice cracks the wall he’s been working so hard to keep between him and the ocean of despair that has been trying to drown him. He grinds his palm against his eye, savagely trying to dam the leak. Sam will know he’s been crying the second he steps out of the bathroom if Dean doesn’t cut the shit right the fuck now.

“Can you – Can you come help?” he asks. Dean can count the number of times he’s asked for such a thing on one hand, with fingers left over to spare. It’s hard – almost as painful as confessing Sam’s betrayal – even if Jody can’t even begin to know the extent of it. It’s necessary though. Sam will be much more likely to listen if the news about Dawn comes from an unbiased party.

Dean’s already seen what happens when he tries to tell Sam himself.

“Dean?”

Her voice breaks into his reverie. “Sorry, what?”

“What can I do?”

“Come talk to him? We’re actually not far from Sioux Falls,” he says and slides the hotel stationary closer. He rattles off the address and tells her everything. Okay, not everything, but close enough: Sam’s powers, his bizarre mood swings, his inability to see the monster right in front of him. He tells her about Missouri’s warning and the way Dawn makes him forget. Hell, Dean even tells her about the way Sam comes home more often than not with fresh cuts on his knuckles and blood caked under his fingernails.

The shower cuts off and Dean stiffens. He doesn’t have much time. “Please, just come,” he begs.

“Give me ninety minutes, tops,” she promises.

Dean shoves his phone in his pants and tosses them back in the corner. He pulls the sheet up to his waist as Sam emerges from the bathroom in a billow of steam. A smile breaks across his brother’s face when his eyes land on Dean, still reclining in bed.

“Hey,” he says and slips under the sheet. Sam rolls halfway on top of him and kisses him with the weight of a lifetime spent together. Dean moans into it and runs his hands up Sam’s damp back, clutches at him and pulls him closer. Fuck, he missed this. It isn’t over yet, but he can finally see light on the horizon.

Sam breaks the kiss with a laugh as Dean’s stomach loudly reminds them of its presence. “Listen, why don’t you get cleaned up while I go pick up some food? You smell like ass.”

“I smell like _your_ ass,” Dean shoots back and gets a hearty laugh and another kiss in return. Dean grabs the back of Sam’s head and plunders his mouth. He tastes like mint and spun sugar. If Dean never tastes anything else for the rest of his life, he’ll die happy. Shit, he doesn’t even need pie when Sam tastes like this.

Sam bites at his lip and pulls away. “Stop stalling and go take a shower,” he says. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

Dean settles back and watches Sam drop his towel, rummaging through his duffle as he looks for something clean to wear. Sam takes his time, preening under his gaze. Dean isn’t being particularly subtle about his ogling.

Sam always was a bit of an exhibitionist. He went through an extended childhood phase where Dean could barely get a pair of pants on him, let alone keep them on. Dean can’t claim to mind much these days, though. It feels so good after all these months – all this time hating his brother, being terrified of him – to just sit back and love him. Dean is basking in the feeling like Sam does under Dean’s attention.

It isn’t until the door clicks shut behind his brother – one last heated kiss burning his lips – that Dean climbs out of bed. He makes his way toward the shower and a long overdue shave. His muscles are loose and he feels better than he has in ages.

Sam came back to him. Dean’s not really sure what changed – what reminded Sam he needs Dean every bit as much as Dean needs Sam – but he’ll take it. Now he just has to get Sammy to see what Dawn is doing to him.

_Easier said than done_.

Dean cuts the thought off at the knees and buries the body with all the other things he keeps hidden away in the dark. Dawn’s freaky-ass mind control only seems to work through touch – at least as far as he can tell – so her hold shouldn’t be too strong on Sam right now. It was weak enough for Dean to fight his way back to reality, after all. Sam can do it, too.

Jody will be here soon and, together, they’ll sit Sam down and extract his head from his ass. It’s going to suck. Sam will put up a fight – he always does – but in the end they’ll walk out of here together and ice the bitch.

Dean loses himself in the fantasy as he washes the day’s reality from his skin. He’s not quite as happy as the morning after he found his brother hunched over a pool table at Hairy’s, but he’s nearly there. Today has been as close to perfect as it had been since Dawn popped up in their kitchen with her goddamned muffins and an eviction notice in her hand.

He may not be belting out Black Sabbath as the water beats down on him, but he has hope: the real kind, not that peppy “glass half full” bullshit self-help gurus keep slinging. Hell, he even has a plan to go along with it.


	9. Chapter 9

For the most part, Sam lets him eat in silence. No pestering about this fucked-up “relationship” with Dawn he seems to think he’s in. No hounding Dean about whatever crawled up his ass these past few weeks. Sam seems content to bump his knee against Dean’s on occasion and make lovesick puppy eyes at him from across the table.

Dean gives him the eyes right back – God help him, because he sure as hell can’t help himself – and throws in a little half-smile for good measure. He knows he’s being ridiculous. Things never go as planned. He knows better than to hang everything on a single, overly simple idea. He does it anyway, though, because sometimes Sam beats the Devil. Sometimes Sammy even gets his soul back.

_Please let this be one of those times,_ Dean prays to the God he knows exists but can’t quite find it in himself to believe in.

Sam nudges him with his foot. “You okay, man?”

“Huh? Yeah.”

“You kinda zoned out there for a few minutes.”

_Oh._ “I was just thinking,” Dean says and picks up his cheeseburger. It tastes incredible. Even his stomach seems to agree, temperamental as it’s being in its shrunken state. He hopes it cooperates long enough to finish his food. Even if it doesn’t, he’ll eat the rest anyway just to spite the damn thing.

“What were you thinking about?” Sam asks. His brows pinch exactly like they do when he’s backed up and trying not to let on. Nervous never was a good look on him.

“You,” Dean says around a bite of burger. He shoves a few fries in to keep it company.

Sam’s not even trying to hide his discomfort anymore. “Good things?” he asks, fidgeting in his seat.

Dean can’t help but remember the timid little boy that used to follow him everywhere. “Good things,” he confirms, and Sam’s constipated expression morphs into one of self-satisfaction.

Dean shudders as a memory of the last time he saw that particular brand of smugness on Sam’s face rolls through him. He’s right back on some tacky, fish-print bedspread, legs spread wide and words stuck in his throat as he comes back from his second orgasm of the night. Sam rocks against him, letting him know number three isn’t too far off.

Now, Sam’s wearing the same not-at-all humble grin as he did back then, with Dean groaning in (feigned) protest beneath him.

“Really good things,” Dean adds without realizing he said it out loud. He appreciates his mistake when Sam’s smile stretches wide and lecherous.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Dean says and shifts in his chair, giving himself a little room to grow under Sam’s appraising eyes. He can feel his face twisting into that little ‘come and get me’ smirk he sometimes catches in the mirror. Dean’s embarrassingly aware of the heart eyes he’s making at his brother. He’s also painfully conscious of his inability to stop.

_Fuck, I’m so screwed,_ Dean thinks as Sam’s smile gets more pointed. Sam is leaning forward in his chair, hand inching toward him, when a loud knock at the door makes them both jump. Sam snatches his hand away.

The knock comes again, sharp and assertive. It’s the sound of someone who’s had to bang on a lot of doors under less than happy circumstances.

_Jody_.

Sam gets up to answer the door and Dean’s eyes flit around the room. His heart pounds in his chest at the prospect of having missed something, some traitorous little detail waiting to give him and Sammy away, but nothing’s out of place.

_Nothing but this,_ he thinks and grinds his palm into his half-hard dick as Sam peers through the peephole.

This is one of the most important conversations of his life. He’ll be damned if he has to do it with an inappropriate boner.

“Hey, Jody,” Sam says. He sounds surprised, but the smile in his voice tells Dean it’s a good one. “We were just having dinner. Come on in.” He wraps her up in a fierce hug the second she steps over the threshold.

She peeks around his shoulder at Dean, eyes wide, as she pats Sam’s back and tries to angle away from him. “Good to see you, too, kiddo,” she says as she pulls away stiffly.

Sam doesn’t seem to notice. He’s already headed to the kitchenette, babbling about leftovers.

_What the hell?_ Jody asks with sideways glance. She obviously wasn’t expecting the happy, carefree, raging hard-on version of his brother. It’s written all over her flabbergasted face.

Dean catches an eyeful of the tent Sam’s pitching as he passes. It bothers him just as much as it did Jody. Maybe more. He throws his hands up when Sam starts rustling through the bags of diner food. _Welcome to my life_.

Jody’s still standing woodenly by the door when Sam returns with an extra take-out container. He settles a possessive hand on Dean’s shoulder, leaning around him to set the box on the table in offering.

When nothing happens, Sam gestures to the empty chair. “Help yourself,” he says, and does pretty much the most horrifying thing Dean can imagine: Sam runs his hand through Dean’s hair.

Blood rushes to Dean’s face while Sam’s caress burns down his neck. It sparks a fire in his chest where his brother’s hand comes to rest. The gesture is possessive and obvious. Sam lifting his leg and marking his territory, maybe grabbing a Sharpie and scrawling ‘I fuck my brother’ across Dean’s forehead, would’ve been less obvious.

Dean is mortified. He sees the puzzle pieces clicking into place on Jody’s face. There’s the realization they’re _together_. There goes the one with ‘Property of Sammy Winchester’ engraved across it. Fortunately, Sam’s too busy nuzzling the side of his face to see the pity in Jody’s eyes as the last piece snaps into place: the gigantic Dawn-shaped one wedged firmly between them.

_Oh, honey_ , she says with a sad smile and a gentle tilt of her head. She’s looking at him the same way Missouri did – like he’s a lame horse who would be so much better off if someone would just show some mercy and shoot him in the goddamned head.

He drops his eyes and does the unthinkable.

He leans into his brother and takes what little comfort he can get. Dean feels Sam’s power tingle with approval along his spine and – _Shit_. _How long has that been back_?

Jody clears her throat. When Dean looks up again, the pity is nowhere to be found. Kindness and affection shine from her eyes. Dean loves her for it.

“Thanks, Sam, but I already ate,” she says. “I was actually hoping we could talk.”

Dean’s heart hammers out a staccato rhythm in his chest. Sam’s power pulses hot in response as Sam tightens his grip. There’s no way he can’t feel the spike in Dean’s heartrate. _Fucking perfect._ Now he has nowhere to hide.

Sam tips Dean’s chin up with a finger of power. Dean bends to the unspoken command and meets Sam’s eyes. They’re cold. Assessing.

A moment later, the power withdraws along with his brother. Dean’s left alone and reeling from the experience.

“Sure, Jody, I’ve got time for a chat,” Sam says.

Dean feels like he’s underwater, struggling fruitlessly for the surface. Sam’s voice sounds impossibly far away as it drifts back to him from over by the bed.

“Have a seat,” Sam continues as he settles on the mattress.

If Dean didn’t know better, he’d say Sam was completely at ease with the situation. His posture is open – relaxed – where he leans back on his hands. Sam crosses his ankle over his knee and waits.

Dean can’t look away.

When they’re not on a case, Sam reminds him of a nine-month-old Great Dane with absolutely no idea how big he really is. Sam bumps into tables and walls. If he can stub his toe on it, he will. The bunker is constantly filled with muttered curses and grunts of pain as Sam wanders around with his face in one book or another. When you throw other people into the mix, he’s like that socially awkward kid in high school no one talks to. Hell, Sam _was_ that socially awkward kid in high school. And that is precisely why his brother’s fluid motions are so alarming.

Sam’s only this graceful when he’s hunting.

Dean keeps his movements slow – deliberate – as he makes his way to the loveseat. Sam’s smile is unguarded, but sharp eyes track Dean’s every step. Jody takes her cue from Dean and approaches with caution.

“So, what’s up?” Sam asks, like he doesn’t already have a good idea.

At least his erection is flagging. Dean was starting to wonder if Sam was going to keep it up forever. This really isn’t the sort of discussion he wants to have while staring at the outline of his brother’s penis as it presses against the fabric of his jeans. Fuck, it isn’t a conversation Dean wants to have at all.

Dean opens his mouth but his words come out as little more than a bitten off wheeze. Jody comes to save him. Again.

“I hear you’ve been seeing someone,” she says. Her voice is friendly, the conversational tone undoubtedly designed to get past Sam’s defenses. Dean looks at her like she hung the moon and feels Sam’s jealousy boil through him.

_Shitfuck_.

The lightness in Sam’s tone belies the darkness in his eyes. “Listen, Jody. I don’t know what Dean told you, but this is between us.”

Jody doesn’t see the danger. How can she? She’s never seen this side of Sam. Dean’s eyes flicker back and forth between them, hidden behind his lashes. He dares to look up and lock eyes with his brother. Shadows dance behind Sam’s steady gaze.

_Don’t, Sammy_.

Jody carries on, ignorant of the violence thrumming under Sam’s skin. “I know, Sam. I’m not trying to poke my nose in where it doesn’t belong, believe me, but Dean –”

A keycard buzzes in the lock as Jody and Dean sit frozen on the couch. Sam looks over his shoulder and smiles when the door swings open.

Dawn crosses the threshold and Dean springs to his feet. “What the fuck is _she_ doing here?”

“What do you mean, ‘what the fuck is she doing here,’ Dean?” Sam growls right back. “I fucking invited her. I asked her to come help with the case since you couldn’t be bothered to get your goddamned lazy ass off the couch.”

Dawn lingers in the doorway, a small smile playing at the corners of her lips. She takes a single step forward and lets the door click shut behind her. It’s barely audible over the hurled accusations Sam and Dean are slinging at each other.

“You left her a fucking key?”

Dawn slides her duffle down her arm and drops it on the ground with a soft thud.

“You haven’t said a goddam word to me in three weeks, Dean!”

Leaning back against the door casing, Dawn looks like the bastard offspring of the Cheshire cat and the kid who got the last cupcake.

Jody might not see the darkness in Sam, but she must see it in Dawn because her hand moves to her gun. The motion draws Dean’s attention. Sam’s follows, hot on Dean’s heels like always.

“Fucking shoot her!” Dean roars.

“Stand down, Jody,” Sam says. Softly spoken words echo through the room in ways that Dean’s shouts never could.

Jody’s hand tightens on the grip and she spares a moment to glance between them. Dean begs every way he knows how. He puts his heart in his eyes, imploring her with every line of his body to pull the trigger. A fleeting look at his brother tells him it’s Sam’s coolness – the cruelty in his eyes – that convinces her to draw.

“Yes! Fucking do it!” Dean yells.

“Don’t. You. Dare,” Sam threatens.

In the split second it takes for Jody to refocus her attention, Dawn abandons her post by the door and starts into the room.

“Don’t move!” Jody cautions and centers her sights on Dawn’s chest. Dawn’s smile broadens as she takes another step.

The shots are deafening in the small space.

One.

Two.

Three.

Dawn’s still standing but Jody’s gun is skittering across the floor. Dean looks on in horror as Jody goes stiff. Sam flexes his outstretched hand and Jody’s skin starts to ripple in an uncomfortable reminder of a blessed afternoon away from their father: the time Dean taught Sam how to skip stones across the still surface of a lake. Her skin undulates like the water after too many stones.

Dean yanks on Sam’s arm, pleading with him to stop. He may as well be a gnat for all the attention his brother pays him. Dawn laughs through it all as the wounds in her chest knit themselves together.

Tears stream down Dean’s face as new holes are torn in his soul. He can hear the sickening crunch of Jody’s bones as they shatter under the intensity of Sam’s rage. Dean gives up trying to move his brother’s outstretched arm and starts shoving at him instead.

The last he sees of Jody is her head thrown back in agony, a silent scream stretching her mouth wide. After that, there’s nothing but hot, red rain.

Sam’s sobbing on the floor. He’s as red as the rain. Flecks of white bone speckle his face and he won’t stop asking Dean why he made him do it.

Dean’s right there on the floor with him, Jody’s lifeblood seeping through his jeans and staining his skin. Sam’s red-tinged tears drip down on his face. They taste like vinegar and blood.

Dawn’s smile is a bit too wide, a bit too cheerful, considering all the blood on the walls.

The whole process couldn’t have taken more than two minutes. Dean doesn’t stop screaming for another five. Not until Sam swallows his own tears and cradles him against his chest.

“Shhhh, Dean. I’ve got you,” he promises and runs a gory hand through Dean’s hair.

Dean feels his sanity slipping to the side and lets it go. He’ll take the darkness creeping at the edges of his vision over the sea of red any day.


	10. Chapter 10

Dean watches his fishing line bob in the water, enjoying the calm from his seat at the edge of the dock. It’s so clean here, so peaceful, with nothing but the twitter of birds and the occasional splash of a fish to interrupt his solitude. He reaches into the cooler at his side and digs around in the ice, searching for his prize.

A soft breeze ruffles through the fine hairs at the back of his neck and the rustle of feathers joins the birdsong. Dean pops the top off his beer and focuses on keeping his muscles relaxed. He stares into the distance, feigning ignorance. The ripples travelling across the pristine lake make him uneasy.

If he ignores the angel long enough, he might just go away.

Dean is almost lost in the serenity of the afternoon again – in the hypnotic lap of water against the dock – when Castiel drops a hand on his shoulder.

“You have to go back,” he says.

“Don’t want to.”                                    

“He needs you, Dean.”

A derisive snort breaks free before Dean can stop it. He scratches at the damp beer label with his thumbnail, the tranquility of the day in tatters around him. Condensation soaks cold and clammy through his jeans and into his thigh as he rolls the tiny, loose fibers between his fingers. The quiet stretches between them as they watch the sun sink in the sky.

“He still loves you,” Castiel tries again, an interminable amount of time later.

Dean actually laughs at that one. The noise is sharp and bitter as his lip curls in disgust. “Trust me, Cas. Sam doesn’t love anything.” He turns his attention back to lake’s gentle waves.

“You’re wrong, Dean. I can show you.”

Before Dean can protest, the angel’s fingers are at his temple and the lake is replaced with a mountain stream. Sam leans over the water, washing dried blood from his arms. The salacious quirk of his brother’s lip makes Dean quiver. It’s the same look Sam gets when he’s trying to get Dean’s cock up his ass. To see that expression on Sam’s face now, as red-tinged water drips from his fingers –  

“Jesus, Cas, I don’t want to see this.”

_Oh, good. Barely more than a scratch. It will be nice to have Dean fuss over me without any real pain involved, for a change._ Sam chuckles and prods at a cluster of shallow cuts on his forearm. Dean feels the ghost of the sensation, tickling at the same place on his own. Gooseflesh races across Dean’s skin when Sam goes back to splashing in the icy water.

“Wait, what?” _Holy shit. These are Sam’s memories? His thoughts?_

Dean sees everything the way it plays in his brother’s mind: Sam stretching out on some bed, making exaggerated little hisses as Dean palpates the bruises littering his body. Dean watches himself touch and caress every single scrape marring his brother’s skin as Sam grows harder under his hands, all the while assuring Dean he’s fine. It’s a complicated dance, but they’ve executed it to perfection time and time again. Heat rushes through them both as Sam remembers exactly how Dean reassures himself his brother is okay.

Sammy’s lewd little smirk makes a hell of a lot more sense now that Dean has the mental images to go along with it. Fortunately, Cas twirls him into a new memory before Dean has to deal with the embarrassment of getting a bit too wrapped up in Sam’s rather vivid imagination.

Nausea swirls through him as the scenery blurs and he’s thrown into a rusty pickup truck. Sam is hunched over in the driver’s seat, scrutinizing a national park map. A mantra of _get to the bunker; Dean will come for me_ plays through Sam’s head on repeat as he takes a quick inventory of the glove box. He gets a stale Kind bar for his efforts and both their stomachs growl at the sight.

Sam finds a wad of tissue, eleven cents, three desiccated French fries, and a mostly empty bag of beef jerky under the seat. The few coins in his pocket, in addition to the stray dime he’d plucked from the floorboards, are enough to place three calls.

Dean’s number is out of service.

So is his other phone.

Sam takes a deep breath and counts to four while his anxiety flutters against Dean’s insides.

Sam slams his fist against the side of the pay phone when a mechanical voice tells him that Dean’s _other_ , other cell phone is outside his calling area.

_Fuck! Breathe. Just breathe. Go to the bunker. Dean will come._

He has no idea where Dean is. He’s half a country away from where he should be – _woke up on a goddamned mountain, for Christ’s sake_ – and there isn’t a first motel in the phonebook for him to go to.

_Don’t panic. Go to the bunker._

Dean feels like he’s on a Tilt-A-Whirl. The longing and fear eating away at him fade, only to be replaced with a gnawing, literal hunger.

Sam glares at the funky ham and rotten takeout that occupy the bunker refrigerator. Dean stifles a snigger at Sam’s mental flash of sprawling across the toilet with vomit in his hair. Sam kicks himself for not grabbing some groceries earlier, wincing as he remembers the last time he was here. Dean’s momentary amusement wilts as his brother’s memories of kneeling on the library floor unfold. Sweat drips into Sam’s eyes. He’s far too preoccupied with the blood Dean left behind to think about picking up a couple frozen pizzas and ready-made salads.

Sam shakes himself out of the memory and Dean breathes a sigh of relief. Sam debates using some of the emergency cash Dean keeps hidden under his meticulously organized porn collection but thinks better of it. He needs something to do to keep his mind off the emptiness of the bunker, something other than going back to work on those blood stains or re-shelving the books piled on the floor.

He scribbles a quick note – _Gone for cash and nachos. Home soon._ – and sticks it to the refrigerator with the takeout menus. He does it partially out of habit, mostly out of hope.

The scenery jumps again, distorting before Dean is dropped down into the middle of Sam’s alcohol-soaked consciousness.

Sam’s thoughts swirl together as the liquor washes over him, dancing around Dean and changing partners before coming back to him again and again. Sam always comes back to Dean; he’s the first and last thing grounding him to this world. Dean will always be the center of it – always has been – no matter the circumstance. It’s kind of embarrassing how long Sam took to realize it. _And people call_ me _the smart one._

Sam jumps when the bar’s door bangs open and a group of middle aged men jostle through it, their raucous laughter clamoring in ahead of them. He turns his attention back to his drink when Dean fails to appear amidst the monotony of gray plaid and grease stains.

Somewhere along the way, his time at Stanford had dulled the memory of what it was like to be stuck in his brother’s gravitational field. By the time Dean’s broke back into his life, the brilliant green of his brother’s eyes had faded in his memory until it was lost in a sea of endless concrete, slate, and gunmetal. Of course, he had retained an academic understanding that Dean was a key player in his world. The knowledge just lost its urgency a little more with each day that passed without a phone call or postcard. He still loved Dean – didn’t comprehend how much, back then – but he’d turned his back on the hunter’s life. Those days, Sam thought more about what would be on his finals than the most likely place to find a djinn.

The weathered door screeches on its unoiled hinges and Sam casts a glance over his shoulder. Black pants, white shirt, salt and pepper hair. He sighs and takes a sip of whiskey to ease the disappointment.

Ten seconds after his hands found their way back to Dean, his heart packed its bags and left Jess standing alone in their half-empty bedroom. He’s sad she died, but the cry of that distant pain had softened to a whisper years ago. Even if it hadn’t, the screaming void left by Dean’s absence makes it impossible to hear anything else.

Sam orders another shot and runs his fingers over the battered surface of the bar. Gouges and divots decorate its face like scars and freckles adorn his brother’s skin.

_Jesus Christ, Samantha_ , Dean thinks as Sam’s thoughts flicker away from the past.

Burst of cold air. Eyes to the door. Only gray. Liquid fire burns down his throat.

Sam hasn’t forgotten again. He’s too busy breaking a little more every second his brother is gone. He doesn’t know what he’ll do if Dean doesn’t turn up soon, if he can’t find him when he finally gives up on the plan and goes out to look. Whatever happens, he knows it won’t be pretty. Maybe he’ll go out in a blaze of glory against the Darkness. More likely, he’ll settle for a date with a gun and the cold porcelain of a motel bathtub.

There will be no more Amelias to carry him along. He won’t be able to plaster over the Dean-shaped gash in his soul with anything other than his brother. Not again. Not like it ever really worked the first time.

The queasy feeling in Dean’s gut intensifies as he’s dropped back onto the dock. The fishing pole is still in his hand, line drifting slack in the water. Nothing’s biting today.

“This is not real,” Castiel reminds him.

Dean ignores him, reeling his line in instead of responding. _I’m not fucking stupid_. He knows this isn’t real, he just doesn’t see much of an alternative. Can’t say he minds it much though. Sure, he’s a little lonely what with only an annoying angel to keep him company and all, but the weather’s nice and his cooler never seems to run out of beer. Dawn – Sam? Both of them? – worked some mojo on him and now he’s fucking stuck here. _Nothing I can do about it_.

“You are not stuck here, Dean. This is as much your choice as it is theirs.”

_Jesus Christ, just fuck off already_.

“Dean –”

“Dammit, Cas! If you want Sam so much, fly your feathery ass down there and get him yourself.”

Cas seems a tad riled up. As much as an angel can be, at least. “I can’t, Dean,” he says with a scowl. “Dawn has us all locked away in heaven. Besides, you’re the only one who can reach him.”

“You didn’t see him, Cas. There’s nothing I can do. There’s nothing _anyone_ can do.”

“He still cares for you. He loves you.” Castiel fixes him with a stern look. “You’re just afraid to remember.”

“Bullshi–”

The angel’s hands are back on him and Dean is blindsided by another one of Sam’s memories. As near as he can tell, it’s what gave Sam the strength to rip his will from Lucifer’s grasp.

The sun is in Sam’s (their) eyes and all he can see is his four-year-old self stuffing a little green army man into the Impala’s ashtray. Dean’s blood coats his (their) knuckles, but Dean’s hands are small and unscarred as they shove Legos into the air vents. Sam mocks his music collection. Dean laughs as Sam wakes up and yanks a plastic spoon out of his mouth. The blacktop rolls out before them.

Dean remembers the enormity of his feelings for his brother as Lucifer’s hold on Sam’s (their) body crumbles. Their lives together flash through their minds like microfilm across a dusty old screen. It’s blood and death, come and laughter. It’s carrying on in the face of all odds.

More than anything, it’s a final promise: a pained, “It’s okay, Dean. It’s gonna be okay.” 


	11. Chapter 11

Dean struggles to sit up on the couch, his abs crying out in protest. It’s cold. Dark. He shivers while memories of their lives together echo through his mind and Sam’s fingerprints burn across his soul. Dean reminds himself that he came back to this mess for Sammy and pushes to his feet, immediately crashing to the ground.

_What the hell?_

The world swims back into focus, but his legs are still uncooperative. His skin hurts and fire races up his shins as he concentrates on wiggling his toes. It reminds him of the first few steps he tried taking after spending a month in a hospital bed. He’d sailed over a cliff on a black dog hunt. A perfect ten for form, but he fucked up the landing and ended up with a broken back for his trouble.

As far as spinal fractures went, it was the kind you hoped to get: a crack on the traverse process of his T9. Still, he’d been confined to bed while the swelling went down and it was well enough healed that he wasn’t likely to become a paraplegic. He still hasn’t told Sam about that one. Dean hadn’t wanted to bother him at the time – Sam had made it pretty clear he was going to Stanford to get _away_ from hunting – and there isn’t any reason to tell him about it now. He’d just freak out thirteen years too late.

Well, that’s not entirely true.

_Sammy_ would lose his shit, pin him to the bed, and run his hands over every inch of skin until he was convinced Dean was alive and in one piece. Then he’d fuck Dean into the mattress just to be extra sure.

The new Sam would probably just shrug and go make himself a sandwich, wouldn’t even bother to ask Dean if he wanted one, too.

_Fuck, I’m hungry_.

His legs are working a little better now. He manages to untangle them, at least. Dean wrestles up to his knees and clutches at the arm of the couch the same way he used to clutch at his brother. So, yeah. It’s not quite as bad as those first few steps in his shiny new plastic back brace, but it isn’t a day at the beach either. The room is spinning again and he’s huffing like a racehorse fresh from the track. His legs tremble like a newborn colt’s and his arms ache with the strain of trying to pull himself up.

_How the hell did I get back to the bunker_? he wonders and flops back onto the couch. Waking up in a different place than where he fell asleep – _than where I got whammied_ – is getting old really fucking quick. Dean rubs a hand across his face, a tired gesture as familiar as the worn couch he’s sprawled across. His beard is back with a vengeance.

_Oh, God. Jody_. Grief hits him like a runaway train and drags him down the tracks behind it. Even if Cas is right – even if Dean can find some way to get through to his brother – can Sammy can really come back from this?

Can _he_?

Jody’s death is as much on him as it is on Sam. He’s the one who asked her to come, begged her to shoot the bitch. He should have known better.

Dean buries the pain and regret down with everything else he doesn’t care to acknowledge. There will be plenty of time to dig it out later and agonize over it to his heart’s content. Right now, he needs to go find Sam before Dawn pops up again like some sort of malignant jack-in-the-box.

His legs scream in anguish when he pushes back to his feet. This time, Dean manages to keep them under him. He holds onto the couch for another few minutes, waiting for his head to stop spinning and his legs to decide if they’re going to keep cooperating. A spike of pain lances up his quad as he shifts his weight, fully expecting to crash to the ground. He doesn’t.

It’s progress.

Dean catches his pants when they try to slip over his hips, yanking them back into place. _What the – How much weight have I lost?_

He pulls up his shirt and gapes at his stomach. Or lack of stomach, to be more accurate. He shoves his body’s complaints aside and props himself against the couch with his hip. One hand clenches in the fabric of his shirt while the other explores ridges and valleys he hasn’t seen in years.

_Not good_.

There’s still a little give – the last remnants of a few too many cheeseburgers and extra servings of pie. It’s the loss of muscle mass that really scares him. Sure, he can see his abs again, but he wishes he couldn’t. This had to have taken weeks. Probably months.

“Going somewhere?”

_Goddamnit._

Dawn’s silhouette leans against the doorframe, ebony against a backdrop of darkness. Her voice is honey sweet and as deadly as strychnine.

“Yeah, to get my brother, you fucking bitch.”

“I don’t think so,” she says, and slinks into the library. Her smile is full of knives as she twirls a ringlet of hair around her finger. “He’s mine now.”

Anger dulls Dean’s fear, takes the edge off his aching body. “Don’t get too comfortable, sweetheart,” he says, low and dangerous. “I was his everything once, too.”

“Oh, please. I know how this ends, pumpkin. Let me tell you, Dean, it doesn’t go well for you.”

“You don’t know shit.”

She snorts. “Let’s not make this little escapade of yours something it’s not.”

“Like what?” He throws the words at her like the blade he wishes he had.

“A chance? Hope?” Condescension drips from her voice. “Whatever it is you think you’re going to accomplish here, you’re not.”

“Sam will _always_ choose me over you.”

“Really? Like he has so far? He couldn’t even wait two full days before he jumped into bed with me. I didn’t even have to work for it.”

“Bullshit,” Dean says, but there’s no fire in it. Her words have the sting of truth on their side.

“Tell me I’m lying,” she says and wraps her fingers around his bony wrist. Colors bubble around him and, without warning, he’s back at Hairy’s.

Boots scuff across the threshold. Sam looks up and fumbles his glass as Dean draws in a sharp breath.

Sam can’t see her eyes. He has no idea if they’re green or not; he can’t say that it matters. Sam stares open mouthed, forgotten drink halfway to his lips as Dean’s heart jackrabbits in his chest. Dawn sashays around occupied and empty stools alike, colors Sam has no names for dancing under her skin.

She offers Sam a demure smile and makes her way to a vacant seat at the other end of the counter. Sam watches in the tarnished mirror above the bar as Hairy sets a beer in front of her and he can’t breathe.

Neither can Dean.

Distant memories of dreams long since forgotten scratch at Sam’s mind: the glint of gold in Dean’s hair as he laughs in the warm yellow glow of the sun, Dean’s graceful hands helping Sam’s chubby fingers roll a shiny red firetruck across an aging orange carpet, the rosy tint embellishing Dean’s cheekbones as he gives chase through a field of vibrant green grass.

Dean is helpless to do anything but watch them unfold. _When did Sam stop dreaming in color? When did he dream like that to begin with?_

“Hi.”

Sam starts at the voice over his shoulder. The proper response leaves for a pack of smokes and never comes back as he sits there, captivated by her brilliant bottle-green eyes. Dean jerks as though he’d been slapped.

“Are you okay?” Dawn asks as she perches on a barstool at Sam’s side.

“Huh?” Sam asks, transfixed by the shades of olive and emerald sparkling in her irises like shadows over a forest floor.

“You were…” she gestures at the mirror.

“Oh. Sorry. I, uh. I like your top.” Her warm smile at his fumbling encourages him and Sam reaches out in wonder. “What color is it?”

_No, Sam. Don’t touch her_.

“The girl at the store insisted it was burgundy, but I think it’s really more of a garnet,” Dawn says as his hand trails over the smooth fabric of her sleeve. “I’m Dawn,” she says, offering her hand. “Buy me a drink?”

“Sam,” he says, taking it. “Actually, I’m waiting for somebody.”

Sam admires her perfectly manicured nails. They’re almost the same shade as her blouse, but not quite – maybe more that burgundy she spoke of. He watches the faint colors in her skin tumble over one another to reach the place they’re joined and thinks he hasn’t seen anything so beautiful in his entire life.

“So?” she replies, raising two fingers to the bartender.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“And I don’t want you mooning over me from across the room.”

Sam’s chuckles before he can stop himself. She’s so like Dean – unapologetic in her brashness – that the little resistance he could muster melts away. He smiles when Hairy sets their drinks in front of them.

Dawn is comfortable.

Sam’s melancholy fades into the background and he’s quick to join in with her easy laughter. He welcomes her closeness and the warmth she gives when all he’s felt since he woke up on a mountain alone is a clawing, empty terror.

Sam sputters and chokes when she kisses him on impulse.

“Yeah, yeah. You’re waiting for someone. Can’t blame a girl for trying,” she says while he tries to find his words. “Tell me about her.”

“Him.”

“Oh. I really am barking up the wrong tree then, aren’t I.”

“No. I mean, yes. He’s different,” Sam stammers.

“Different how?”

“It’s hard to explain.”

“Try.”

“He’s everything. I’ve known him forever, you know? He’s just. He’s just Dean. You wouldn’t understand.”

“I might.”

“I’m colorblind. Not mismatched socks colorblind. Dog colorblind, like the world is in Technicolor but I’m stuck in a black and white movie.”

The floor falls out from under Dean as his baby brother tells a complete stranger their secrets. _What are you doing, Sammy?_

“I can see him though. Like, really see him. He glows. And his eyes. They’re green. He jokes it’s because he’s my soulmate. It’s the only color I can remember seeing,” Sam says as he finishes his drink in one long swallow. “Until you.”

“Me?”

Sam gulps around the lump in his throat. Jesus, he’s had a lot to drink. He can’t believe he’s telling her this. He can’t stop himself either.

“You see my eyes?”

“Your eyes. Hair. Clothes. Everything. There are colors under your skin.”

Dawn caresses his face, a wide smile eating away at hers, and pushes an errant lock behind his ear. She shifts closer, tucks herself further into his body as she nuzzles his cheek with her nose. Sam’s resolve crumbles as the heady scent of honeysuckle fills his senses.

His breath catches as her teeth nip at his ear. “Maybe it’s because we were made for each other,” she whispers.

Sam shudders and buries his face in her neck, one hand shoving up under her shirt to palm her breast. Dean will forgive him. Eventually.

Dean is breaking apart when Dawn finally decides he’s seen enough and pulls him back to the present.

“See, Dean? Just like Ruby. Like Amelia,” she says, victorious. “Don’t look so surprised, pumpkin. Of course he told me about them. He tells me a lot of things. Things he doesn’t even tell you. If that’s your idea of love – of undying devotion – you’re even more fucked up than I thought.”

Dawn’s words scoop him out, leaving him hollow in their wake.

“Why don’t you be a good boy and do as you’re told? Have a beer. Enjoy the fishing. Leave us the fuck alone,” she says, and brushes a tear from Dean’s cheek. Her colors come pouring in to fill the empty spaces she’s carved out. They surge through him like a riotous crowd, raging, frothing, and boiling.

Dean stares down at the beer in his hand. He knows it isn’t real – just Dawn fucking with him as usual – but he can’t resist taking a long swallow to dispel the crushing thirst at the back of his throat. He downs it quickly and reaches for another. His thirst fades along with the memory of his brother’s betrayal.

He feels like a freshly watered house plant. Gone is the discomfort and the anxiety of real life. The fishing rod feels like home as he tightens his grip around it.


	12. Chapter 12

“What are you doing, Dean?”

Fucking angel, always popping up when he’s least expected. When he’s least wanted. “What the fuck does it look like?”

“It looks like you’re ignoring the issue.”

Dean rolls his eyes. It would be nice if Cas was a little less cryptic on occasion. “What issue?”

“Sam. The Darkness. You have to stop it.”

“Oh, that,” he sighs and recasts his line. He kind of remembers that. The memories are blurry and far away, like the fish circling his line.

“Yes, Dean. _That_.”

“Sam made his choice. Nothing left to stop.”

Castiel sighs. If Dean didn’t know better, he’d say the angel was exasperated, like Cas was getting tired of having the same old argument. Hell, maybe he is. There’s a lot of stuff Dean doesn’t really remember. There are a lot of things swimming around at the back of his mind, just out of reach.

“No, he didn’t. The choice was made for your brother, long ago. Dawn is evil, Dean. You have to remember. You need to save Sam.”

Dean feels the dock rolling under him as Castiel puts a hand to his temple. He fights the urge to be sick and wins, barely.

The dock disappears and spikes of recognition flash through him. _Cas has done this before, thrown me into Sam’s memories…_

Fiery rays of afternoon sunlight pierce through the forest canopy, trading their eager thrusts for gentler caresses as they filter through the ocean of branches. Bees rush between bright purple and blue blossoms like red-faced children darting amongst the multi-colored displays of a candy store. Their tell-tale buzz mingles with the rich chorus of birdsong and the rustle of unseen things in the lush detritus of the forest floor.

A startled laugh slices through it all, choking off the forest’s animated chatter. Dean’s breath catches in his throat. The laugh doesn’t belong to his brother. It’s Dawn’s.

Twigs snap, thunderous in the eerie silence, as a startled squirrel bounds from its hiding place and disappears back into the greenery. Dean can feel her delight bubbling through him as Dawn scoops up an armload of leaves and tosses them in the air. She laughs as the rustic browns and ochres bleed from them and they crumble, raining down on her like ash.

She fumbles through her stolen body’s memories, pausing occasionally to turn one over before setting it down and moving onto the next, as she rolls through the disintegrating forest duff. It’s like free-diving: the crushing feeling of so much water pressing down while a little voice chants ‘you’re not going to make it’ – gets louder and louder while your body burns from the inside out, demanding oxygen you can’t give – until you finally break back into the sun.

_Yes, just like free-diving_ , she thinks. Waking up on this earth, surrounded by these trees, in this body –  it’s exactly like the first deep breath, denied for so very long, that comes crashing through you and over you and around you, letting you know – in this moment, at least – you are truly alive. And she is. She’s alive and she’s breathing and she is finally, finally free.

She flops onto her back and waves her arms and legs in the gray dust surrounding her – the last remnants of leaves and life and color that yielded to her presence – making an angel like this body used to do as a child in the snow. She snorts at the thought and pushes to her knees. Fucking angels.

Endless shades of green and bursts of bright blue liven up the deeper hues of coffee and umber, unmuted as they once were, filtered through the cracks in her prison. It’s glorious. She’s free to enjoy it now – to marvel at everything that bastard God created – until she’s strong enough to take it all for herself. For now, her power is coiled, mostly untouchable, deep down in her consciousness. She can feel it stirring, calling out for her other half. Once she unlocks it, everything will be hers: the moon, the sun, the light, the dark, and everything in between.

Dawn pushes up onto unsteady legs, wobbling for a moment before her body remembers how to use them. Dean’s stomach lurches as she totters forward a few steps. Her stride steadies as she gains confidence in her new legs, making her way toward her destiny.

Destruction follows her, cleaving its way neatly through the brilliant shades of green. Even the fallen leaves give up their last traces of life. “Control,” she reminds herself. It won’t do to have everything she touches dissolve into a colorless powder. That would tip her hand. She focuses her power, builds a wall around it, and tries again.

She’s doing much better by the time she hears the faint, intermittent rumbling of cars in the distance. The lush plants composing the forest floor still brown and wilt as she passes; the succulent red berries that once dotted the brush are nothing more than desiccated husks behind her, but she marches on. The soft crunch of grass fills the air while vibrant green fades to the sun-bleached yellow of a Kansas wheat field under her bare feet.

She takes the last few steps up the grassy shoulder and onto the empty stretch of two-lane blacktop intersecting her path. A soft smile pulls up the corner of her berry-red lips. She’ll get the hang of it by the time someone stops for her. She’s always been a fast learner.

Dawn doesn’t have to go far. She slows her pace as the rumble of a distant engine draws near. The sedan stops just ahead and a concerned face greets her as she approaches the passenger window. “Are you okay? Do you need help?” the driver asks, worry coloring her voice a vibrant orange.

“A ride would be lovely,” Dawn replies as she straightens up. Her mouth blooms into a full smile as she slides into the passenger seat, completely undisturbed by her nudity.

The young woman in the driver’s seat fishes around the floor behind her for a moment and re-surfaces with an oversized lavender hoodie. “I’m Carrie,” she says as she holds the sweater out in offer.

Dawn’s breath catches as she locks eyes with the woman across from her. Her hand lightly brushes against Carrie’s where she clutches the cardigan. Sparks fly up her fingers and along her spine as the color bleeds from Carrie’s skin. She’s never felt so much energy, so much _life._

The girl is just a slip of thing; it doesn’t take much effort to pull her body from the driver’s seat. Dawn awkwardly half-walks, half-drags the cold, grey corpse around the side of the car and drops it on the shoulder. The meat makes a dull thump as it hits the ground.

Dawn strips the pants from the body and slides them up her long legs. The fit is less than ideal. The light blue denim stretches tight around her hips and leaves her ankles bare. She doesn’t try to zip them. Dawn knows a lost cause when she sees one.

She smiles as she plants her foot on the body’s hip and rolls it into the ditch below. Dawn strolls back to the idling car and retrieves the hoodie; it’s a little tight across her breasts but at least it hides the open V of her jeans. She climbs back into the car and slips it into drive. A quick check behind her reveals the highway is just as deserted as it was when the girl first stopped to offer her assistance. Dawn can’t help but notice her eyes are the exact shade of green as the forest behind her.

“Well that’s just too perfect,” she laughs. She’d worked for years to steal this particular shade of green, and all she’d had to do was take a little stroll through a forest. “Easier said than done when you’re locked in a box,” she mutters with a roll of her eyes.

She’d been envious of Dean’s irises since the day he was born. Subdued as the color was through the cracks in her cage, she could still tell they were something special. Dawn had eagerly watched over him, certain that this boy with the brilliant eyes would be the key to her freedom. It was only a few years after Sam was born that she gave up on the idea of Dean setting her free. Just like her too-small pants, she knew Dean was a lost cause.

His hopelessness was apparent early on, in the way Dean slowed his stride so his toddling baby brother could keep up. It sparkled in the way he laughed, smiling a little brighter whenever Sammy would crawl into his lap. The way Dean wrapped himself around Sam at night and held him close told her Dean already belonged to someone else. She could tempt and twist all she wanted, but Dean would find a way to destroy himself before he would tear Sam apart.

He almost did, too.

Dawn was right to put her money, metaphorical as it may be, on Sam. He was greedy and it would be his undoing. It was Sam that would set her free, even though Dean bore the key to her cage.

So she focused her attention on Sam at an early age. She took what she could in preparation like she had for so many generations before – tiny sips and bites through the minute cracks in her dingy prison walls – and waited for the day it would pay off. The day she could stand before Sam and be the one beacon of light in a world gone gray.

It was easy at first. The soft creams of motel room walls and the leather of the Impala’s interior were the first to go, little more than gray to begin with. The sands and blondes were next, followed by the taupes and browns that kicked up under little Sammy’s feet as he chased after his big brother. The reds and blues were harder. Sam really didn’t want to let those go. So she worked calmly and relentlessly, drawing those favorite shades around her and letting them burrow in deep.

Dean was the worst. Sam was four days past his six birthday before she managed to steal the sun-burnt shades of sienna from Dean’s freckled skin. Try as she might, she couldn’t drown out the green of his eyes. She raged against the imposing walls of her prison before finally letting it go. Eyes were the windows to the soul, after all, and Dean’s was completely, irrevocably Sam’s. She couldn’t touch it, she realized with great sadness, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t get Sam to throw it away. Get him to break Dean so completely that Sam would be left wide open and aching for her.

“Do you see, Dean?” Castiel asks as he rips Dean from Dawn’s musings. “This is what she wants. You can’t let her win. You have to fight.”

“Don’t you get it?” Dean yells and throws the beer that’s magically reappeared in his hand across the lake. The distant splash isn’t nearly as satisfying as he’d hoped. “I _did_ fight. I fought until there was nothing left. She won!”

“You’re still alive Dean. She hasn’t won yet. She _will_ if you don’t snap out of this cycle of self-pity you’re stuck in and do something about it.”

“Like what? I’ve tried everything.”

“Stop pushing Sam away.”

Dean scoffs and looks at the angel with disbelief. The last clear thing he remembers is sinking into his brother with glee. Well, that and the tacky feel of Jody’s blood cooling on his face. “Yeah, tried that too.”

Cas rolls his eyes. Dean can hardly believe it. “That’s not what I meant, Dean,” he says. “The harder you push, the faster he runs toward her. If you want to save your brother, you have to embrace the darkness in him.”

This time Dean sees the outstretched fingers coming, not that it does any good. The now-familiar carnival ride queasiness fades and Dean finds himself back in the bunker’s library. Neat piles of books litter the floor, so this must be sometime soon after they let the Darkness lose. Sometime not too long after it walked through their front door and into his brother’s bed.

Sam’s eyes are red-rimmed and his head throbs when he forces himself out of his chair. He’d finished most of a second six pack after Dean had stormed out last night and passed out, still trying to convince himself to stop thinking about his brother and finish sorting through the stack of books beside him.

Saliva tugs at his face where it’s crusted in his stubble and his stomach roils. At least his physical state is enough to somewhat distract him from the thoughts swirling around his cloudy mind.

The door buzzer jackhammers in his (their) ears. The sunlight that shoulders in when Sam cracks the door is a knife to their eyes. Sam’s hand shoots up to deflect the worst of the rays, blinking as Dawn’s hair glints fire and spun gold in the light of the early morning sun.

“Hi,” she says.

“Hi,” he replies, puzzled, and lets the door swing open.

“I wasn’t sure if I should come by,” Dawn says as she presses a steaming cup of coffee into his hand on her way in. She pauses at the stairs when Sam doesn’t move from the entryway. “I’m sorry, Sam. I didn’t expect him to be here when I stopped by yesterday. I just walked in…”

Sam sighs and shuts the door, goes to her and pulls her against his chest. “I know. I just didn’t want him to find out that way.”

“I didn’t tell him,” she says, running her hands up his back.

His headache fades to a dull background roar as warmth pulses into him. He leans against her while they make their way down the hall. “No, he… I don’t know. He just knew. Kept yelling about blueberry muffins.”

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry,” she says as she perches on the bed. “I brought breakfast. This is all my fault.”

“No it’s not. I was going to tell him – how could I not – but we were just so happy to see each other. It wasn’t the right time.” Sam paces and tugs at his hair. He stops when he realizes it isn’t helping and sinks down next to her, instead. “I went out to get coffee and breakfast. I was going to talk to him when I got back. Tell him about you and then figure out how to deal with the Darkness after.” He takes a sip of coffee and rests his head against hers. “But when I got back, he told me you brought muffins.”

Dawn shifts back so she’s leaning against the headboard and Sam follows. “I’m so sorry, baby,” she says as she cradles his head to her chest and strokes the hair out of his eyes. She pets him while tears soak through her thin shirt, whispering reassurances in his ear. ‘Don’t worry, baby’ and ‘he loves you’ and ‘he’ll be back’ until his tremors stop shaking them both.

They lay in silence until Sam starts running his fingers along the vivid fabric of her blouse, teasing across the sensitive flesh of her stomach where it peeks out above her jeans. He looks up at her, searching her jungle green eyes.

“It’s cerulean blue,” she answers.

When their lips meet, Castiel shows mercy and whisks him away into another of Sam’s memories.

Sam sits alone in some no-name hotel, thumb hovering over Dean’s name in the eerie glow cast by his phone. It’s unlikely that Dean will answer – things will undoubtedly get worse if he does – but it’s so very, very tempting to try and plead his case one more time. He stops himself, barely, and dials Dawn instead.

“Hey,” he says when she picks up on the second ring.

“Hey to you, too. How was the hunt?” she asks. “Was I right?” Her voice is honey and sunrises and his chest unclenches as it washes over him.

“Yeah, it was an _azeban_. Nasty little bastard, too. Dean had to get rabies shots.”

“Poor guy. Is he doing alright?”

Sam’s laugh is broken and shriveled – more of a huff than anything – as he cradles the phone to his ear. He lets the soft sound of her breath soothe the tension from his muscles like Jim Beam hadn’t been able to. He’s grateful that she waits with him, an anchor when the one he’s depended on all his life just jumped ship.

“I told him you weren’t going anywhere,” he says into the quiet between them.

“Oh, sweetheart,” she whispers and Sam can feel her devotion flowing through the line, filling in the holes Dean keeps chopping out. “How are you holding up?” she asks and Sam loves her – wholly and without pause – in that moment. He craves her touch nearly as much as he longs for his brother’s.

“That good, huh?” she says into the silence.

“I miss you,” he mumbles as calming ripples of fern and shamrock-green wash through him. He dreams in the roses and emeralds of the aurora borealis with the phone pressed to his face and Dawn’s breath in his ear.

Castiel’s hand is gentle on his shoulder as Dean looks out over the water. “It’s too late, Cas. I can’t,” he says into the twilight.

“This isn’t over,” Castiel promises before he pulls away.

Dean is left alone in the silence, not even the echo of wings to keep him company.


	13. Chapter 13

Dean has no idea how long it’s been since he saw another person. That’s one of the perks of holing up in your own mind: there are no people around to bother you. Of course, he would have preferred it if the same were true for angels. Life would have been so much better if Cas had left him in peace instead of dredging up the past. Instead of forcing him to remember things he was doing such a good job of forgetting.

Cas didn’t though, and now Dean is having a hell of a time shoving all that back down where it belongs. His memories don’t fade away nearly as easily as they had under Dawn’s helpful hands. Dean’s still angry about it when the angel returns with a soft beat of wings.

“You’re out of time,” Castiel says by way of greeting.

It irritates Dean all the more. The only being to grace his presence these days can’t even be bothered with a proper hello. Dean shoulders his bitterness aside and reminds himself he isn’t lonely, tells himself once more that things are better this way.

Cas must be out of fucks to give, because he reaches for Dean’s temple without another word.

“Fuck, Cas! Knock it off,” Dean shouts and jerks away. He doesn’t have anywhere to go, no way to escape whatever Cas wants to show him. Not out here, stranded on a dock in some quiet corner of his mind.

“No, Dean, _you_ knock it off. You’re dying. You’re wasting away out there and if you don’t get off your ass and do something about it, there really will be no hope left. Not for anyone or any _thing_. I won’t let you kill us all!” Cas grabs him and shakes him hard. “Open your eyes! This is happening, Dean, whether you want to deal with it or not.”

This time, when Castiel palms his forehead, there’s no nausea. It’s the strangest sensation – sort of like floating outside his body, but not. Hell, he would know. He’s done it enough by now. This is different: everything is distant – not nearly as painful as it would be under the full weight of reality – but he can feel it all. Not just his own emotions and bodily sensations, but Sam’s and Dawn’s as well.

It’s unsettling.

A spark of madness glitters like a beacon at the front of Sam’s mind, but he’s completely blind to it. Dean would be, too, if Dawn’s darkness cloaked it for him like it did for his brother. Her stolen colors swirl and shift, stoking the fire of Sam’s insanity.

Dean’s nothing but a hollowed out shell. A ghost of the man he used to be. He feels the truth of it from a place outside himself, from the safety of the dissociation Cas provides.

Dawn’s breath punches out of her chest as Sam pushes into her from behind. There’s no gentleness. No tenderness. Just brute force as he shoves in as deep as he can. He pulls back and snaps his hips forward once more, the beginnings of a punishing rhythm.

Her moans turn into pants as Sam’s vicious thrusts rock her body, breasts swaying heavily and nipples grazing Dean’s chest. It’s perfect. Sam digs his fingers into the soft skin of her hips and pulls her back onto him as he slams in again and again. She sinks her fingernails into Dean’s shoulders in return and hangs on for the ride.

Dean’s cock is hard and leaking from the friction of Dawn’s silky skin rubbing against him as Sam fucks her.

“I’ve got an idea,” Sam says and pulls out of Dawn completely, guiding her up to straddle Dean. “Christ, look at you. Both fucking dripping for it,” he mutters as he grips Dean’s cock and positions him at Dawn’s entrance.

Dean watches with a strange mix of revulsion and lust as Sam guides Dawn down onto Dean’s dick. Other than a slight twitch of his hips, he doesn’t move when she settles on his lap and starts rocking. He can’t see his own expression – he hasn’t turned his face from the wall once – but Dean’s pretty sure he’s completely checked out. And not in a good way.

_How can Sam not notice?_

Sam carries on, oblivious to Dean’s absence. He grabs a bottle of lube from the nightstand and slicks up his fingers, kneeing Dean’s leg to the side and settling between his thighs. He starts working his way into the tight heat of Dawn’s ass as she grinds down on his brother. Sam stares in fascination at the place they’re joined. The light dancing across the slick coating Dean’s cock has him mesmerized.

_Fuck, Sam, quit looking at my dick and help me._

As fun as it is to watch, Sam has other needs. He yanks his fingers out and bends Dawn over, giving his cock a precursory smear with the lube still on his hand before pressing steadily into her. The feeling of Dean gliding against him through the thin barrier of flesh is exquisite.

Dawn gasps and shudders around and between them, letting loose a soft whimper of protest when Sam loses what little patience he had and shoves the rest of the way in, balls slapping against Dean’s. He pays it little mind – Dawn likes it rough – and slams in again. Sam isn’t going to last long.

He pulls out and shoves Dean’s leg up as high as it will go with Dawn wedged in between them. He swipes his tacky fingers over Dean’s hole, dipping inside for only a moment before he’s pressing the blunt head of his cock against Dean’s rim.

_Please, Sammy, don’t. Not like this._ Begging his brother doesn’t help. Sam only presses harder.

Dean switches tactics, urging himself to get up. To fight back. _Fucking do something you worthless sack of shit!_

Dean can scream at his limp, useless form all he wants. It doesn’t do a damn bit of good. Sam’s slow slide into his unyielding body is nothing short of agony, even with the dampening filter Castiel has put between his mind and his nervous system.

Sam winces at the friction. With only the traces of lube left from Dawn’s ass and no prep, it’s definitely on the painful side of pleasure. He can only image how it must be for Dean. He doesn’t dwell on it, though – the blood will ease his passage in a few strokes anyway.

Sam thrusts hard and deep, glad he’d held off his orgasm until he could be buried to the hilt in his brother.  His hips stutter and he rams home one last time as his orgasm roars through him. He thrusts in a few more times, until the blood and come make it easy to slip out. Once he’s free, Sam settles back on his heels to survey the damage.

Dawn rolls off and flops down at Dean’s side, gazing into his sea green eyes. They’re downright vacant and the understanding makes her giddy. It won’t be long now.

“I think you broke him,” she says with a smirk.

Sam grunts in acknowledgement from between his brother’s legs without diverting his attention. He’s far too captivated by the sight of Dean’s swollen, pulsing hole where he holds him open wide.

Dean stares at his ruined body in horror. _This isn’t me. This can’t be me._

“I mean, he doesn’t even cry anymore,” Dawn carries on conversationally, pursing her lips in a fake pout when Sam finally looks up at her.

At least _that_ managed to get his attention.

Sam turns back to Dean, actually _seeing_ him for the first time in a long, long while. His gaze drifts from the charcoal gray trail of blood oozing from Dean’s asshole up to his neglected cock, where it lies half hard and forgotten against his emaciated stomach. Sam’s eyes skip over prominent ribs to Dean’s wasted and bite-raw chest before finally coming to rest on his face.

Dean’s beard is scruffy, easily twice as long as Sam had ever seen it. The hair is matted together with a thin trickle of drool and what might be some tomato soup left over from whenever Dawn had fed him last. He should really get her to do a better job of cleaning Dean up. Maybe feed him a little more while she’s at it.

_Oh God, Sammy. Please see tell me you see this. You have to see what she’s doing._

Dean’s head is turned to the side, face lax and expression blank as glassy eyes stare at a fixed point on the wall to his right. Dark smudges accent shrunken cheekbones and Sam is startled by the realization that his brother’s sparking eyes – once the only point of vibrant color in an otherwise gloomy world – are now as grey as the rest of him.

He wonders when that happened.

_Yes, Sam. Yes! C’mon, baby brother, you’ve got this._

Sam thinks back over the night and those that came before, trying to remember the last time he had seen a hint of green in Dean’s eyes. It’s been a long, long time. Months, maybe.

_You’ve figured it out. Now, put it all together._

Sam stiffens as realization floods through him.

It’s not just the eyes.

It’s been a really long time since Dean had gotten into their lovemaking, too. In fact, Dean hadn’t moved at all when they were fucking earlier. Sure, the occasional twitch of his hips and cock, the clench of his ass, but it was a far cry from active participation. Hell, it wasn’t even a struggle. Dean had just lain there, staring at the same fucking place on the stupid wall the entire time.

_What? No, Sam._

Sam swallows the rage threatening to spill over in the face of Dean’s dismissal. _He always turns into a jerk when he’s hungry_ , Sam reminds himself. _Just breathe. You can’t blame him for his low blood sugar._ Sam leans up and traces his thumb over Dean’s cheek. “I’ll take you out for a nice burger tonight, Dean. My treat,” he promises with a soft kiss to Dean’s chapped lips. “That always perks you up,” he adds before shoving off the bed to go shower the blood and spunk off his crotch.

Dawn watches Sam leave and snuggles closer to Dean. “I know you’re here,” she says as she runs her fingers down his chest and back behind his balls to tease at his rim. “Poor little boy, still waiting for his happy ending,” she whispers sweetly in his ear as she toys with a lank lock of hair. “Sam never really loved you, you know. There’s nothing your little angel friend can do to change that.”

With a cruel smile and a twist of her wrist, she digs her fingers into his damaged ass. Dawn worms around inside him for a moment before suddenly withdrawing. A sneer twists her beautiful face as she forces her filthy fingers past his cracked lips, stroking his tongue and tracing along his teeth as she licks his jaw. “This is all you ever were to him,” she says and bounces out of bed to join Sam in the shower.

The bedroom wavers for a moment and Dean can’t be sure if it’s due to a shift in the timeline or to a perfectly reasonable attempt to retreat back into his own mind. Whatever the cause, it stops when Cas pulls him out of the fog and drops him into a bathtub full of lukewarm water. It takes him a moment to orient himself and, once again, Dean is grateful for the distance Castiel is keeping between him and the situation. As it is, Sam’s frustration is nearly devastating as it courses through him.

By the time he’s finished washing the come and blood and shit from his brother’s gaunt body and drained the tub, Sam has nearly lost his goddamned patience. Dean is being a fucking prick as usual, refusing to lift a finger to help.

“I can handle you being a dick, but the silent treatment is just childish, Dean,” Sam grumbles as he pulls the detachable showerhead from its mount and turns the water back on. “You know, we could be enjoying a beer right now while we wait for our food to come out. But no, you can’t even be bothered to give me a goddamn hand. And why the fuck are you so dirty?!” he snaps as he rinses Dean’s skin, directing the icy spray toward the trail of filth that has coalesced in the bottom of the tub.

The brunt of Sam’s anger bleeds away when he notices Dean’s skin pebbling. He adjusts the temperature with a weary shake of his head, even though the idiot refuses to complain about the freezing water. “Oh, don’t be petulant, Dean. It doesn’t suit you,” he grouses as the tub starts to fill again.

_Petulant? You think I’m being fucking_ petulant? _Jesus Christ, you’re off your fucking rocker._

Sam swirls a washcloth through the clean water and scrubs at the gunk crusted in Dean’s beard. He might as well shave the whole thing off. It would ease the struggle of getting him clean and it would only take a few extra minutes. He doubts Dean would be able to make his behavior any _more_ obnoxious during the small amount time it would take.

He grabs the cup off the rim of the tub and fills it with water as he tips Dean’s head back. It’s going to take a couple of washes to get all this grease and grit out of Dean’s hair. Sam dumps the tepid water over his brother’s head and works the shampoo in, careful to keep it from getting in Dean’s eyes just like Dean did for him when he was little.

Memories of long ago baths soothe away the rest of Sam’s irritation and leave him feeling nostalgic. When he tries to run his fingers through Dean’s hair – so much longer than it used to be – a lock falls out in his hand. Sam sighs and resigns himself to shaving Dean’s head at the same time he takes care of the mangy beard. Dean’s going to be pissed at the added delay. _I’ll probably have to buy him two burgers to make up for it._

_Jesus, Sam. I don’t want a fucking cheeseburger. I want you to snap the fuck out of crazy town and ice the bitch!_

Sam hums Metallica under his breath as he maneuvers Dean out of the tub and sets him on the fuzzy floral-print toilet seat cover Dawn had insisted on purchasing. He wraps a matching towel around Dean’s shoulders and scrubs at his hair with another, disregarding the clumps of dishwater blonde that come off with the towel. The clippers will make quick work of that whole situation.

Much to his relief, Dean doesn’t complain when Sam tends to the raw, chaffed skin on his hips and shoulder blades. Sam reminds himself to do some research on bed sores as he pats the skin dry and coats the wounds with a thin layer of antibiotic ointment. The one on Dean’s right shoulder is starting to look particularly bad. Sam doesn’t want Dean to get an infection, even if he is being a total asshole lately.

Irritation simmers along Sam’s nerves as Dean continues to ignore him. Still, he takes the high road. Dean might be acting like a five-year-old, but that doesn’t mean Sam has to join him. With a deep, calming breath, Sam takes a small pair of scissors from the cabinet and starts trimming chunks from Dean’s beard. “Don’t worry, I’ll be quick,” he promises as he starts cropping his brother’s hair close to his scalp. “You’ll feel better when this is done. I’ll even get you dessert.”

Sam babbles into the silence between them. He tells Dean about the little restaurant he and Dawn frequent and about all the different foods he thinks Dean will enjoy as he sets to work with the wireless trimmer.

It makes Dean want to scream.

When Sam is finished with him, Dean looks more like Christian Bale in The Machinist than the lead from The Walking Dead.

He can’t decide if it’s an improvement.

He misses Dean looking like _Dean_ instead of some goddamned POW. If Dean would just fucking take care of himself, Sam wouldn’t have been forced to do this. He clenches his teeth and bites back the rebuke – Dean always digs his heels in deeper whenever he knows he’s getting to Sam.

Sam’s exasperation grows on the way to the restaurant. Not only did Dean waste a bunch of time by making Sam dress him, now he’s just sitting there, quietly staring ahead while Sam tries to perk him up. It’s pissing him right the fuck off.

Of course, Dean isn’t any better _in_ the restaurant. _Oh no, that would be too much to ask for._ Sam carries the conversation as best he can, telling Dean all about the latest hunt he had gone on with Dawn. He rambles on, tossing out juicy little details about how they had fucked on some kid’s little twin bed after Sam ganked the monster. Unfortunately, the 8-year-old boy whose bed the monster had been hiding under got caught in the crossfire, but no matter. Case closed.

The whole time Sam’s talking, Dean isn’t listening. He won’t stop staring at some point over Sam’s left shoulder. It’s so bad the other diners are beginning to take notice and Sam is embarrassed by the attention his brother is drawing.

“Didn’t Mom ever tell you it’s not polite to stare?” Sam asks viciously as he cuts into his steak.

Dean blinks slowly and continues to gaze over his shoulder, completely ignoring him.

Sam slams his fist down on the table, making Dean’s silverware clatter against his plate and causing the only two other couples in the small restaurant to jump. “Eat your fucking food!” he bellows.

Dean doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t do as he’s told, either.

The sole waiter on duty narrows his eyes and makes his way over to the table, the trepidation in his step almost masked by his confidence in the tentative authority of his position. “Sir,” he addresses Sam, “I’m afraid that you and your guest –”

He doesn’t get around to asking them to leave. The look on Sam’s face as he tears his gaze away from Dean tells him that the center of Sam’s attention is a very bad place to be. The man is so caught up in the darkness in Sam’s eyes that he doesn’t even blink when Sam pulls a blade from his belt.

He does seem to notice it slide between his ribs, though.

The waiter falls to his knees, well on his way to bleeding out from a severed artery in the few seconds it takes Sam to cover the distance between their table and the guests nearest the exit. Sam dispatches them quickly, with the grace and speed born of years of hunting supernatural creatures.

In one fluid movement, he turns and snaps the neck of the last man as he tries to bolt past him to the exit. His wife sits in shock at their table and waits for Sam to come. For as stupid and cow-like as that wide-eyed look makes her seem, she’s at least smart enough to know there’s no hope in running.

Sam smiles when she doesn’t even try to scream.

When Sam comes back from the kitchen, hands dripping and face spattered with blood, Dean is sitting where he had left him. His plate remains untouched – cheese long since congealed over his fries – and he’s still staring at the same fucking place.

Sam loses it.

He yanks Dean from his seat and slams him face first into the table. “What the fuck is your problem?” he roars as blood streams from Dean’s nose. Even then, Dean ignores him. “What the fuck is wrong with you? I do fucking everything for you! I brush your teeth. I wipe your ass. I buy you fucking food that you won’t eat. And you fucking treat me like this?” Sam rants as he shakes the limp body beneath him. He doesn’t even care what he’s saying anymore. He just lets the rage pour out of his mouth and wash over his brother.

“Fuck you, Dean! Just… fuck you,” Sam yells as he yanks Dean’s pants down, exposing the pale, jutting bones of Dean’s pelvis. The position only serves to accentuate how much weight his brother has let himself lose. It’s more fuel to the fire of Sam’s fury.

While the ‘fight’ part of Sam’s adrenaline response has always worked just fine, the past decade or so has been hell on the ‘flight’ part of the equation. It’s been getting twisted around and coming out as ‘fuck’ more often than not. And there is no way he’s running from his own goddamned brother.

Sam holds Dean down by the back of his neck with his right hand while he works the blood- and gore-speckled digits of his left into Dean’s ass. His brother is more swollen than he normally is after taking Sam’s cock, but he figures it’s on account of the lack of lube earlier. Sam doesn’t have any on him now, either, but he supposes the server’s blood will suffice. Dean’s own had certainly eased the way in the heat of the moment. He isn’t in the mood to do Dean any favors, but it will be a lot more comfortable for him if he throws his brother a bone.

He scrapes up some of the waiter’s coagulating blood from the puddle at his feet and works it into Dean’s ass. It’s a little tacky, but has nearly the same consistency as the thick, high-end lube Dean always used to break out whenever he was in the mood to ride Sam long and hard. Sam smiles at the memory of Dean bouncing on his cock before he remembers how much of a cunt Dean’s currently being and shoves in with a single, punishing stroke.

The pain fades as birdsong once again fills the air. Dean draws in a deep breath for what feels like the first time in ages. The dock sways gently under his feet as he ponders everything Cas had showed him. There’s nothing to go back to, no reason to fight. The knowledge that he won’t have to wait much longer wraps around him like an old friend.

“It doesn’t have to be like that,” Castiel interrupts. His voice is gentle, as though he were speaking to a child. He continues when Dean graces him with a short glance. “You can still save them.”

“Save who?” Dean asks. _Those people in the restaurant are long gone._

“Everyone, Dean. There’s still time to save those people. Not much – it will happen soon – but this is what will come to pass if you stay here. Everyone in that restaurant will die. You will die. And then the world will die. You _must_ go back and find a way to reach your brother.”

The dock sways gently under him as Dean considers the angel’s words. He’s tried everything he can think of already. There _isn’t_ a way to reach Sam. There isn’t a way to save him. Cas can push at him and show him every little horrible thing Sam has ever done, but it won’t change anything.

“I’ll give you a little while to think about it,” Cas says into the silence. “Remember, Dean. There isn’t much time now.”


	14. Chapter 14

Dean ponders Castiel’s words – the warning that his time is nearly up – and turns his face into the evening rays of sunlight. It warms the chill in his bones and glitters across the surface of the lake. Water laps softly at the dock and herons splash along the shoreline.

He’s at peace.

Soon, his body will follow.

There are worse ways for a hunter to go out. Dean’s experienced a few of them first hand.

The sinking sun pulls at the curtains of the day. Orange and red explode around him, a symphony of chaotic color. _Yes, there are definitely worse ways to die._

Dean’s serenity is shattered by the soft rustle of wings. “Sammy died a long time ago,” he says, resignation heavy on his tongue. He just wants to be back with his brother. His real brother, not the monster inhabiting his body. “There’s nothing I can do about it now.”

“Have you tried? Truly tried?” The rebuke is gentle, so much more so than Dean has any right to expect. So much more so than he deserves.

Dean hears Jody’s compassion in the angel’s voice and it makes his chest contract painfully. Castiel moves to stand at his side, comforting and constant as they stand shoulder to shoulder and watch the riotous colors frolicking through the clouds.

The sunset reflects back to them from the surface of the lake. Even the air seems to bounce the color back to them. Dean thinks he’s never seen anything more beautiful in his life, with the exception of his brother.

“Breathtaking, isn’t it?” Castiel says softly. “There aren’t words for it, Dean. The day you die – when Sam breaks completely and Dawn lays claim to his soul – the sun doesn’t set. It falls.”

Dean shivers as the angel lays a hand on his shoulder. _This is too much._

“This is what the future holds,” Castiel says before he winks out of sight and Dean is left standing alone on the top of a mountain, far from the tranquility of his lake.

Ash rains down around him like a grim snow. Gone is the sunlight. The moon is missing, too. Even the stars have abandoned their posts. A red haze fills the air, making it nearly impossible to see clearly. Without it, though, there would be no sight at all. It illuminates everything in an eerie crimson light, like a beckoning exit sign through the gloom of a smoke-filled room.

It takes a few seconds for his surroundings to sink in. The realization of where he is hits him like a rusty old Pinto.

This is the place he first gave into his feelings for Sam: that deep, all-encompassing love that was so much more than brotherly. It was the single scariest thing he had ever done.

Still is.

Selling his soul was nothing. It was worthless without Sam, anyway. Hell, even letting Sam say yes to Lucifer was easier, if only because if (when) he lost his brother, it wouldn’t be _Sammy_ walking away from him. So yeah, he’s never been quite as petrified as he was staring into Sam’s glittering eyes and laying his heart on the line.

The Detroit skyline was sparkling in the distance behind Sam when he did the strangest thing.

He kissed Dean back.

It was right after their last Christmas together: the one Dean had so desperately wanted to have before the clock ran out on his deal. Sam had been sullen and withdrawn since then. It was plain to see how much it had taken out of him, but still, Sammy kissed him with everything he had. He dropped to his knees right there, swallowed Dean down where he was propped against a weathered picnic table on a hill overlooking the city.

Detroit has held a special place in his heart ever since. Whenever he thinks about it, it’s always this table that jumps to the front of his mind. That, and the initials they carved into it after he’d emptied his soul into Sam’s eager mouth. Not even the devil jumping Sam’s bones in the heart of downtown could dim that bright, shining memory.

Apparently, the otherworldly red haze blanketing the skyline isn’t enough to dull it, either.

He’s tracing the ‘S’ in Sam’s initials with his index finger when a strange wail pierces the quiet night. It grows and mutates into an ear-splitting shriek as the red haze thickens and swells.

Dean looks on in impotent horror as the skyline heaves and the lights flicker out. Its silhouette quakes in the faint red glow and collapses before his eyes. The ground trembles beneath his feet. He puts a name to the unearthly wail the second it abruptly cuts off.

He never wanted to know the sound of millions of people crying out as one.

Debris crashes down around him, the vomit of a dyspeptic city everywhere he looks. Then the rain comes. It’s hot and red. Redder than the mist.

Wetness soaks through his clothing with perverse determination as he surveys the damage. There’s absolutely nothing left. Nothing but marauding waves of crimson fog and the flotsam of tragedy. Dean can’t wrap his mind around the sheer scale of the destruction.

It’s as inconceivable as the moon suddenly catching fire.

He’s still staring into the yawning void when Dawn walks out of the fog in front of him, Sam in tow. She wears darkness like a little black dress. It drips off her shoulders in long black eddies and shifts in his brother’s wake.

Dean watches helplessly as Sam spins her around and wraps his red-stained hands around her waist. He backs her onto the table, brushing the whirls of darkness up her thighs like he would push up a flowing skirt. There’s smoke in her eyes and death at her back as she wraps her legs around his brother. Dean looks away when she licks at the red spatter marring Sam’s grinning face.

Their table – the entire world beyond it, as far as he can tell – is tinted red, the blood of the unlucky staining the skin of the strong. This is what Cas wanted him to see. This is what the Darkness promises.

Dean knows what he has to do now.

***

Dean watches the ripples race across the lake as he swirls his bare feet in the water. His thoughts wander as he flexes his big toe, slowly breaching the surface of the water before dipping his foot back down with rhythmic regularity. His fingers tighten where they’re wrapped around the rough wood at the end of the dock, leaning forward to examine his shimmering reflection.

He wonders if an actual drowning would be anything like the staged ones of his father’s training regimen.

Dean is grateful for the solitude Cas grants him after these little trips through time. He needs the reprieve. He’s still staring vacantly at the place his feet disappear into the cool water when the soft beating of shadowed wings penetrates his consciousness.

Castiel sits next to him and drops his feet into the lake beside Dean’s, dress shoes and all.

“You know, it really helps if you take your shoes off first, Cas,” he says with a fond smile.

As many human mannerisms as he’s learned, Castiel is still decidedly _other_ at times. It’s usually a toss-up as to whether Dean is going to find his antics amusing or exasperating. Tonight, he’s going with amused.

“There isn’t any water here,” Castiel replies, his voice gruff as it usually is during his visits here. Any trace of his former compassion is gone.

The smile fades slowly from Dean’s lips as he turns his gaze back to his toes, ghostly where they poke out of the water in the pale light of the half moon. “I know,” he quietly admits to the inky blackness cradling his feet.

“You haven’t much time now.”

“I know, Cas.”

Dean looks up at the millions of stars blanketing the sky and wonders if they’ll still be there when he goes back to his brother.


	15. Chapter 15

Dean’s cold.

It’s the first thing he notices, a harsh change from the eternal warmth of the lakeside. It’s strange, feeling actual cold again rather than the crisp water of his sun-warmed lake. His skin pebbles like a freshly plucked chicken, pulling tight and uncomfortable against the underlying layers.

The next sensation to make an appearance is pain. It starts as a small spark and roars through him like a flash fire the second his mind acknowledges its existence.

_Breathe_ , he reminds himself. _Focus on something else_.

The flames recede as he contemplates the hardness under his chest, the gentle sway as he’s rocked back and forth on top of it.

_Table_ , his bleary mind supplies.

Dean concentrates, willing his rusty brain to process faster, trying to figure out exactly who or what is ramming a spike up his ass. Grudgingly, his senses follow his command.

The sound of crickets and field mice are displaced by the scraping of flatware tinkling against a plate and the gentle swoosh of his shirt as it drags over the tablecloth. The soft grunts and punched out breaths coming from behind him join the more innocuous sounds and Dean relaxes slightly. He recognizes them as Sam’s.

_The spike is Sam’s dick._

Dean knows there’s something seriously wrong back there. This is agony, far worse than when his soulless brother tore into his freshly-made vampire ass. (“Please, Dean. You’ll heal. Just – let me.”) Dean forces his petulant brain to catalogue his other aches and pains, pushing the anguish of Sam pistoning into him as far away as he consciously can. He can’t go back to the lake. Not yet, at least.

He can’t let the world end the way Cas had showed him it would. If he’s right – if this is the restaurant Cas popped him into earlier – his time is pretty much up.

Dean fights back his gag reflex as his sense of smell joins the party. The crisp scent of lake water and sweet, sun-warmed grass are replaced by the scintillating aroma of good food, overlain by the stink of piss and shit. The scent of death and the iron notes of blood clog his throat. He’s helpless to catch the small, choked noise that escapes his lips.

He does manage to stifle the sob that tries to break free when Sam’s hips still.

It figures his brother would notice such a small transgression even though he’s oblivious to everything else. Dean trembles as he braces himself for the full brunt of Sam’s attention.

“Did you say something?” Sam asks as he pulls out.

Dean doesn’t reply. He’s too busy trying to bite back his tears as his brother spreads him open and traces his thumb around Dean’s rim.

“Think you’re bleeding, Dean,” Sam says as he circles around the table. It takes a hard slap to get Dean to open his eyes and look, but when he does he can’t help but notice Sam’s elation at his acknowledgement, psychotic as it may be.

Sam crouches down in front of him and waves his hand in Dean’s face. “I wonder if it’s the same shade as Dawn’s lipstick,” he says and sucks his thumb into his mouth. “Want a taste?”

Dean closes his eyes again. _Just get it over with, you bastard._

Sam growls and flips him over, grabs the waistband of Dean’s jeans where it wraps around his thighs and uses it to slide him more squarely onto the table. Dean’s untouched plate shatters on the ground. His head hanging over the edge gives Dean a perfect view of his forgotten hamburger bun as it slowly soaks up the blood from the pool it landed in. Sam grips Dean’s wasted thighs and shoves them up as far as he can, practically folding him in half.

Dean clenches in anticipation of his brother forcing his way back in. His eyes fly open at the shock Sam’s tongue caressing his hole instead. He immediately wishes they hadn’t. Sam looks up at him from between his thighs, a demented grin stretching his bloodied lips wide. Dean doesn’t know if the blood belongs to him or the waiter Sam had killed earlier. It’s probably both, anyway.

He stares in abject horror as Sam spits a big glob of saliva on his ass and shoves the bloody mixture back into him with the fat head of his cock. Sam hums his pleasure as his crown breaks past Dean’s rim.

Dean whimpers as tears stream down his face.

“It’s okay, Dean. I’ve got you,” Sam promises and thrusts in deeper.

There’s no point in trying to hold back his cries. No reason to try and choke back his tears. He wouldn’t be able to even if he gave it everything had. This is so much worse than Hell. This is _real_ , and his brother is tearing him in half. Dean squeezes his eyes shut, clutches the table cloth, and prays for it to stop.

He knows it won’t.

“Knew a good lay would put an end to your ridiculous fucking tantrum,” Sam pants before he plunges his tongue into Dean’s mouth. He only fucks in harder when Dean manages to raise his left hand up to Sam’s chest, where it flutters uselessly in an attempt to push him off.

“Y’know, Dawn’s a great fuck, but she’s got nothing on you, Dean. Not when you really get into it,” Sam says and bites at his jaw. “Love it when you scream for me, baby. Missed you moaning and writhing on my cock.”

_Oh God, don’t._

“Look at me, Dean.”

Dean squeezes his eyes closed even harder. Tilts his face away. It’s the only defiance he has left.

Sam sighs in frustration and jerks Dean’s face back toward him. “You’re gonna cave eventually and tell me why you’re being such a little bitch. You always do. Can’t say I really mind fucking that stick out of your ass, though.”

_Please, just shut the fuck up and finish._

“Getting close, Dean. Look at me,” Sam gasps. “Wanna see your eyes.”

Dean doesn’t. He _won’t_.

“Gonna make you pant my name,” Sam promises as he pushes himself up on his elbow enough to worm his hand between them. Irritation flutters across his face. “Fuck, Dean, you’re not even hard.”

_Of course I’m not, jackass. Don’t want this._ Dean manages to jerk his chin out of his brother’s hand, turns his face away once again.

“You know what, Dean? Fuck you,” Sam growls and slams in as hard as he can. “Fuck you for making everything so goddamned difficult. If you won’t say my name, I guess you’ll just have to scream instead.”

Dean can feel the moment his brother quits trying to make it good and channels all of his energy into chasing his own pleasure. It isn’t until Sam hitches his leg up higher and plunges in as deep and hard as he can, that Dean understands how much worse it could get.

He screams, just as loud and as long as Sam promised he would.

It feels like an eternity before the punishing rhythm falters. Dean never stops crying, but he does drag the tablecloth a little closer around him with each of Sam’s ruthless finishing thrusts. He grips his prize tight and opens his eyes as Sam tumbles toward climax.

Sam locks eyes with him like he has in this moment so many times before. “So green,” he chokes out, his face a mask of awe as he tips over the edge of orgasm.

He looks so surprised when Dean plunges the steak knife into his neck. The startled look in Sam’s eyes starts to fade the moment Dean yanks the knife back out, his brother’s blood spraying across his face as swirls of darkness fill the air.

***

“In the end, we only regret the chances we didn’t take.”

_Well that is just fucking stupid._

Dean glances to his right, unconsciously searching for Sam’s unspoken agreement. The slight hike of an eyebrow. A quirk of his lips in a conspiratorial smile, gone before anyone else would think to notice it. A barely-there toss of his head or tip of his chin.

Instead of Sammy’s bright eyes telling him they’re united on this, too – them against the world just like always – he’s met with the wide-eyed stare of a rumpled Taco Town employee. Dean flinches and turns his attention back to the offensive poster across from him.

The kid’s eyes bore into him and Dean tries not to pay him any mind. Hunter instincts – still sharp enough after all this time – dismissed Taco Tommy (or Eddy or whatever his name might be) as harmless when the kid had first stepped onto the otherwise empty bus.

His skin itches under the kid’s scrutiny. Dean meets his eyes again as the bus rolls to a stop, soft screeching of breaks the only sound in the quiet night.

He tries to remember how to harden his face. Make it into something intimidating. It must have worked, even if the fit is a little unfamiliar these days, because the kid pulls his backpack closer and bolts through the doors as soon as they start to swing open.

Dean faces front once more and settles into the ambient noise of the empty bus. The gentle rocking soothes his tattered nerves. Toothy smiles and sparkling eyes mock him from the community college propaganda across the way as happy graduates clutch their degrees and toss their hats in the air. He’s pretty sure community colleges don’t have graduation ceremonies, or degrees for that matter. Even if they do, he’s absolutely certain a community college degree is complete crap.

“In the end, we only regret the chances we didn’t take.”

_Bull. Shit._

Dean regrets the chances he _did_ take.

A year ago, that wasn’t the case. Hindsight’s a bitch, though.

He starts at the sharp bark of his own self-depreciating laugh and picks at the blood crusted underneath one of the only two remaining nails on his left hand.

_Sammy’s blood._

He can’t scrub it away, no matter how hard he tries. It’s part of him now.

There was a time he would have said he didn’t regret the lengths he went to in order to save his brother. Hell, he’d told Sam as much time and time again. If he thinks about it long enough, he can almost remember how it felt when his soul was an inconsequential price to see Sammy’s smile light up the dark just one last time.

Today, Dean regrets every movement of his hands as he buried that old cigar box in the middle of that distant crossroad. Should’ve, would’ve, could’ve.

It’s the story of his life.

He remembers feeling that the ends justified the means. He just never thought it would end like this.

The chances he took, the choices he made… they all brought him here. To this empty bus in the middle of the night as it rambles through the dark countryside.

He regrets them all.

Dean regrets every shouted warning. Every time he pushed Sam out of the way of slashing claws or gnashing teeth. Every deal made and every one broken. He wishes he’d had the strength to end Sam’s story when Death gave him the chance.

He regrets every stolen glance. Every stealthy kiss. Every broken moan as he held himself open and Sam split him in half. Every time he held his brother down and showed him how much he loved him, even though he couldn’t bring himself to say the words.

Fuck, given what he knows now, he wouldn’t have followed his father’s order to take Sammy outside while the flames licked at his mother’s body.

It _is_ the end, and Dean regrets every chance he took on his brother.

He shivers as Sam’s power sizzles across his nerves. It’s still weak, but it gets stronger every day. Dean feels it no matter how fast or how far he runs. And it’s so… _angry._


End file.
